“You’re right, there is pressure as a celebrity to satisfy people. In today’s day and age, I think it’s more important to tell the truth and let that speak for itself. Sometimes it won’t, for decades. Some truths go un-responded to for a long time. And that’s part of the tragedy of being human; you’re sometimes out of your timezone when it comes to what you think. But that’s where it takes the courage to persevere, self-esteem to say ‘I’m okay if people don’t like me.’ Because I can’t make them! And I’m okay with people who like me. In fact, I like that what we see in each other, what we like in each other are the values that we cherish. I see you being courageous and makes me feel warm inside, and I admire that. And now I have someone to look up to and I have an image now of you that, when I’m afraid, that can say, ‘hey she did this! Now I think I can find the strength in myself to do it too.’ That’s how we lift each other up.
Mark Pellegrino
I feel like I don’t want to get all serious, but I tend to anyway because I like talking about important things. I know this is supposed to be fun, but important things are fun too. Self-esteem is a really, really hard thing to cultivate. So many of us come from broken homes and parents provide you with that sense of life very early on, or don’t, and if they don’t it’s a difficult, difficult thing to establish. But vital, so vital that you love yourself. You deserve it. You do. I mean, I don’t know most of you, maybe there’s some out there that don’t deserve it. But you do if you try to live a good, virtuous life with honesty and integrity. Reason. You try to be productive. I hope you allow that to affect your sense of who you are. Regardless of whether people like you or not, you’re doing the right thing.”
Photo: Rose Richards