Day one of a week-long series on feminism and equality.

Disappearing does seems easy sometimes, seems like a relief because you don’t have to make decisions about what you want to do, who you want to be, how you want to act, what interests you.

But what seems like the easy way often turns into a very hard way and this is why. Because sooner or later you are going to find that you want your own identity and you will be playing catch up, or you will have lived your life and found it is too late and you have none. That will be a depressing moment.

So, no matter how strong or domineering the people or person are who you are connected to, you have no other successful option than to be strong and resolute in standing up for who you want to be. If that means you have to argue, then you argue. The option of just keeping quiet to avoid an argument will work for a while, but in the long run it will only succeed in building resentment from you and imbalance in the relationship.

Oh, and don’t blame the other person or people. They may make it difficult, true. But you, and only you, are responsible for creating yourself. Saying someone is in your way is a sterile statement. Either fight your way past the person or rid yourself of the person.

Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman

“It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.” – Betty Friedan in ‘The Feminine Mystique’, published 1963