I was reading through a back issue of Psychology Today recently and in the advice section I cam across the tried and true “letter” from a teen fussing about losing her virginity. What caught my attention was the witty use of language. The supposed letter writer wanted to “lose her virginity” to “get it out of the way”.
I should probably take a moment to explain my skepticism about the letter and response. Does anyone actually write letters about this stuff to advice columnists anymore? Did they ever? Is there someone out there who reads advice columns but has yet to come across several of these responses?
Anyway in this particular response what attracted my attention was the attack on the language used. First the columnist asked why virginity had to be gotten out of the way? What exactly is it in the way of that it needs to be gotten out? And lose it? Something which you will only ever have one of you shouldn’t want to lose, you should want to know exactly what you did with it. If only for future reference.
While the word play was what caught my attention I particularly like the message and I think it applies to a lot more than losing one’s virginity. The essential message is one of being deliberate in one’s actions. Know what you are going to do and why you are going to do it.
2 comments:
Narrative is not always linear. There are times the understanding must follow the action. The moral the story. To wait only until one is certain risks never acting. In the interim, we must rely on our instincts. It is only through testing them that we will learn to make better decisions in the future.
Being deliberate in one's actions is not action without risk nor inaction. It is a matter of judging risk versus motivation rather than reward - part of the journey of self discovery and towards personal responsibility.
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