“It’s a marriage culture,” a single woman says
The New York Times reports today that there are more women living without a spouse than ever before. All kinds of women make up this new statistic: never married ones; widowers, divorced women, etc. Many women I know from my own work fall into the category of “delighted to be single again”. Frequently, these are women who married young, raised families and are now glad to finally explore their own Authentic Self. Yes, they would like to find a partner who they can have fun with but are also glad to be on their own, free to sleep on the other side of the bed, come home late and not have to make a meal for anyone except themselves.
One of the women in the article says that she was surprised by how happy she was to be on her own, explaining, “That’s not how I grew up…it’s a marriage culture.”.
Indeed it is. Women are encouraged to get married and have kids. So, just taking the risk of staying single will increase self-esteem.
Self-esteem is built by daring to move yourself outside of your comfort zone. The comfort zone can be marriage or a job, whatever. If you want to feel confident almost immediately, take a risk. The risk doesn’t need to be huge or life-changing. It’s the act of taking the risk that is one of the keys to becoming more confident.