The moment you let go of your desire to be perceived as good, your life will begin to change for the better.
I know this will cause discomfort but stay with me.
Language has for centuries been used as a tool for control.
Few forces have been quite as effective in the subjugation of entire groups of people as the words and stories told or planted about them.
Why?
Because words shape imagination, which creates ideas that inform reality and behaviour, even when distorted.
These distortions are then parroted by disciples, people who blindly echo them as accepted truths.
These truths are then passed down from generation to generation until they reach you.
It's now your turn to live by whatever playbook your caregivers, your community have been following.
And this is where the problem arises because, unless someone in your lineage has intentionally dissected and corrected the content of these instructions and expectations, you are most likely receiving a mandate, a programming that breeds self-hate, self-distrust and conformity.
How do I know this?
Because the societies we run thrive on your disconnection from yourself.
People who are disconnected from themselves are easier to control.
Period.
So it's your duty, for the sake of your life, to pause and examine the things you've been told makes you good.
And to ask yourself, is this truly good or is it merely an appearance of goodness?
And if it is good, according to whose principles?
History has shown us that the concept of morality has often been bent to serve those in power shifting to justify whatever narratives they want to sell.
People have committed atrocities in the name of common good and have been praised for it, awarded medals and had statues erected in their honour.
To their society, to the people whose bids they were carrying out, they were good.
So you see the danger of attaching yourself to societal concepts that change with the times, because what is celebrated today could be condemned tomorrow.
If you seek freedom, if you wish to explore, create and build an unshakable foundation within yourself, you must release the need to live up to any ideas that don't fully embrace the complexity of what it means to be human.
Listen, I was raised to serve, to be a caretaker, self-sacrificial and to have no needs of my own.
And I spent over half of my life doing just that.
So you can imagine my shock and horror when the word selfish became my second name, especially starting in my late teens.
I felt like my very identity was being trampled upon, like my entire existence was being denied, because I had given so much of myself that I didn't even have a context of who I was outside of my usefulness to other people.
So how could they call me selfish?
How could they keep calling me a monster?
And yes, I was called a monster.
It hurt me so much that I found myself trying to provide proof to defend everything I had done over the years.
I was so terrified of being seen as anything but good, considerate and giving.
But the real struggle was that my need, my newfound need to find myself, to learn myself, to discover myself, was clashing with my need to prove my goodness.
That's when it dawned on me.
The very people I was trying to prove myself to were the ones who had benefited the most from my sacrificial nature.
They knew all I had done.
I didn't need to prove anything.
They were simply wielding words as weapons to keep me in line.
All I wanted was to stop feeling like an object and start feeling human.
I longed to be more than a trophy child, a built-in caretaker, or a kitchen utensil.
My desire for freedom to exist without the weight of other people's expectations was a threat to the systems that favoured them.
They would only stop calling me selfish, stop calling me out of my name, if I climbed back into the cage they built for me.
By their standards, I was no longer the good girl I once was, even though that goodness was rooted in the suppression of my personhood, built on my silence.
And maybe they might not have been doing it consciously.
Who knows?
But that's beside the point.
When language is weaponized, the goal is always to get you to revert to their puppetry.
Let me give you another example of the way society subtly enforces control through the framing of words.
Let's look at modesty and humility.
When people say be modest, what they really mean is pretend you don't know your worth, wait for other people to notice and then perform gratitude for their recognition.
Don't you see how that sets you up for abuse?
That's why I don't practice modesty.
It's a farce.
It's a trap that gets you hooked on external validation, making you prone to devaluation because you don't know your worth or the value of what you carry.
Now humility.
True humility is rooted in honesty, in respect, in honoring your humanity and the humanity of others.
You should never deny your own worth.
Too many things in the world will do that for you anyway.
Speak your value without fear because language creates reality.
I made a decision back then a long, painful but ultimately worthwhile decision to become myself the person you see here making this video.
And I started by recognizing that this would only be possible if I made peace with being considered bad terrible selfish, wicked or difficult.
That's my favorite one, by the way.
Every time someone calls me difficult, especially as a woman, I feel empowered because it means I'm doing something right.
I am no longer swallowing my tongue.
You might ask, but what if I'm wrong, Pearl?
When those doubts creep in, it's crucial to practice critical thinking.
Ask yourself, what exactly is the basis of this accusation?
Also keep learning yourself and, as you grow, surround yourself with people who actually care about you.
I know my shortcomings and so do my loved ones.
So when someone calls me difficult, I look at what I know, what we know.
And I realized, oh, difficult is a label used by people who can't accept that I'm taking up space.
People who can't handle my refusal to conform.
Think about it this way.
If you ask 10 people what love is, you'll get 10 different answers.
Why?
Because your understanding of love is shaped by experiences, disposition, and cultural conditioning.
What some people call love may be toxicity, but to them that's love.
Love, like any value, is channeled through vessels.
It borrows bodies.
If the vessel is distorted in any way, it warps how we experience it.
Values like good, modest, polite, nice, they take the shape of the bodies that enforce them.
So when you live to be seen a certain way, you are always subject to someone else's worldview and will have to deny aspects of your humanity to appease them.
Some people are okay with that, me I'm not.
So if you choose to live your life for others, go for it.
But humans are too complex and too complicated for that.
You become a concept, a version of yourself that isn't real, one you can't even keep up with.
And it's overwhelming.
No wonder you're struggling.
No wonder you're stuck in this endless loop of self-hate, of false identity.
No wonder you feel trapped.
Of course, there are fundamental pillars of morality and legality.
We all know that everyone has a right to life and that we shouldn't hinder that right or that enjoyment.
We all know that kindness is necessary for the sustenance of the human spirit and for order in our communities.
So no, this isn't about denying objective acts of goodness.
I am inviting you to examine systems that have no qualms about inflicting violence or denying safety, systems that have shamelessly broken and continue to disregard fundamental human rights, just to maintain control.
What better way to control someone than to turn them against themselves?
Examine the maps you've been handed, the ideas that have been planted in your mind about what kind of person you must be and what kind of life you should live.
It is your right to love yourself.
And sometimes that journey puts you in a position with the systems you've been trying to impress.
But you cannot build a life of freedom if you're still trying to be agreeable to the people who benefit from your compliance.
Only with self-love do I hear questions like, when does it become arrogance?
When do you cross the line into narcissism and self-glorification?
What about ethics, pal?
What about consideration of other people?
What are these questions?
I don't hear it when you're talking about being in romantic love.
I've never heard it.
We live in a world where simply being your own friend, valuing yourself and working towards self-mastery threatens societal structures.
Yet time and time again, we see that the most hurtful, the most inconsiderate people, narcissistic people, have something in common a deep sense of emptiness and an internal lack that they seek to feel through hurtful behaviors.
Look at the structures of your society, no matter your country, your culture, and you see that there's a lot to gain from you devaluing yourself.
And that is considered good.
Order, that's what it's called.
Look at the language used for people who deviate from those norms and expectations.
Whose idea of good are you trying to uphold?
And what is it costing you?
Allow yourself to be a person, a growing, learning and alive person.
You get to outgrow identities, to try new things, to make mistakes, to learn and recover from them, and so do other people.
This is a human experience and we're all having it.
This is my first life.
At least the only one I'm fully conscious of.
Letting go of the desire to be perceived as good has given me a freedom I cannot explain to you.
I've embraced my complexity.
I've embraced every shadow, every light.
And with that, I've built an unshakable foundation within myself.
I don't want to be on anyone's pedestal.
Those things steal your humanity.
If you place me there, It's at your own risk, just so you know.
Yes, at your own risk, I will fall on you.
You know, every single day we get another chance to do better than we did yesterday to love, to heal, to unlearn the harmful things that hurt us and the people around us.
To confront limiting beliefs, not just about others, but about ourselves.
So I challenge you, let go of the need to fit someone else's mould.
You are not the sum of others' expectations.
Every single day is a renewed opportunity to exist, not just in the good you've been taught to perform, but in all the shades that make you human.
So take the chance to embody who you are, to embrace yourself.
And I promise you in that embrace, you'll find your truth.
You'll find true freedom.
I'll end with this.
In this body, there's beauty and pain.
In this body, there is joy and sorrow, light and darkness.
In this body of mine, there is everything that makes the world go around.
As always, it's been an absolute pleasure.
My name is Pearl Girl, and I'll see you in the next video.
