Why Kim Kardashian’s advice of “Get your a** up and work” is terrible

Mar. 14

This is a personal share about a younger version of me. This picture has proudly lived in my dad’s wallet since I was 5. There’s so much I want to say about this. It was my first day of Grade 1 in India.

I could talk about how I asked for a bop cut and the hairdresser thought I meant boy cut 🤣

I could talk about those gold earrings and how an older kid stole one out of my ear saying “it’s about to fall out. I know your mom, I’ll give it to her”

I could talk about how the photographer told me to smile with my mouth closed to hide the gap where my baby tooth fell out. I took that terrible advice for years and never smiled with my mouth open because I thought it was ugly.

I could talk about how I could tie a tie at the age of 5.

I could talk about the fact that I started school a year earlier than everyone else and had my first entrance exam before I even turned 3. I had to write my ABCs and 123s in the principals office. When I got done, he said, “good job, you only made 1 mistake.” Instead of writing a 3, I had drawn an extra third squiggle. Instant shame washed over me. How could I have gotten it wrong? I practiced so much! Instead of celebrating what I got right, I focused on the single mistake and never made it again.

I grew up with constant pressure. Thanks to colonization, the more perfect you were, the better opportunities you were given. You had to stand out from the crowd, while also blending in. No one explicitly told me this as a kid, but it was an understanding when raised in that culture. Mistakes weren’t celebrated, perfection was.

My entire life I’ve put pressure on myself, to perform, to get it right. I watched Turning Red this weekend and I felt so seen. The inner struggle between honouring your culture and wanting to fit in. Not wanting to disappoint your family who’s worked so hard for you.

Many of us put pressure on ourselves and continue to. It’s taken so much work for me to step away from all that I’ve known, and allow myself to rest, to play, to be. To unlearn systems of supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism.

So when I hear privileged folk like Kim K telling women in business to “get the F up and work” 🙄 I have the opposite advice: You already work hard. So go play. Rest. Be.