Happy 4th of July to everyone! I hope you're planning something special. This is the time of year when I get most nostalgic for my childhood, when the Fourth of July seemed like the longest and most exciting day of the year (after Christmas, of course).
Afternoon kicked off the Independence Day parade, where my brother and I would race out and collect candy from beneath the hooves of beribboned horses. Later my family would have a bonfire on the beach and eat s'mores and light off fireworks on the smooth sand. When darkness fell, the real fireworks display started. We snuggled beneath old sleeping bags, and I remember watching the reflections of light on my parents' faces. The rare occasion of all of us spending a day together was just as important for me as the parade and fireworks.
All that changed when I became a teenager. I became too "cool" to collect candy. Instead of watching the parade with my parents, I wandered up and down the parade route with my best friend to watch for cute out-of-town boys and hope I'd be noticed. At the beach that evening I met up with school friends and only returned to my family when it grew dark. And on a secluded corner of the beach one year, I had my first real kiss.
Looking back now, I feel a bit sad to remember just how important popularity and success with boys was to me – and all of us, really – at that time in my life. Like most teenagers, I believed that my social status with my peers was more important than time with my family. If someone would have told me that what boys thought of me didn't matter, that I was going to be successful in life whether or not I got noticed by boys, and that what I would miss most someday would not be the social status but rather that precious time with family, I would have thought they were crazy.
It is so easy to forget what's really valuable and important in life. We may have friends and family that love us, but instead it's tempting to focus on our lack of a guy. We may have wonderful activities to share with people we care about, but instead we find ourselves tempted to look for opportunities where there are single men.
Sometimes it's nice to stop looking and just enjoy where we are in life. It's nice to remember that our success in life isn't judged on whether we have a boyfriend/partner/husband or not. It's nice to remember that we can do or be anything we want without being penalized for being single.
Our civilization has gone a long way in the past fifty years. Every day, women around the world get more opportunities to fulfill their dreams. We know that a loving, lasting relationship should – and will – be part of our lives, but it isn't and won't be our entire life. Life is much bigger than that.
This Independence Day, I'd like to ask you to remember one of the greatest blessings of all: our ability to take charge of our lives and change what we don't like. It's a blessing bestowed to all of us. No matter how impossible something seems, or how great the odds, we still have the opportunity to do something about it.
Let your life reflect conscious choices. You don't have to be noticed by boys, get lots of attention, or have the perfect boyfriend to be successful. You get to decide what will make you successful. What will you create?