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The Message Is Simple: Think

smart-girl

Credit: stevendepolo

No matter how much we preach that working out is more about feeling good than looking good, there’s no doubt that improving your appearance is a nice perk to regular workouts and a healthy diet. But just because we’re always talking about building muscle and moving that bottom doesn’t mean that we’re not also interested in what’s going on in the most powerful muscle you have: your brain.

Many times, smart girls who aren’t afraid to speak up and be themselves (or get fit with the big boys in the weight room) get a bad rap for being outspoken, loud, too masculine or just plain bitchy. Which sucks. If co-founding Fit Bottomed Girls and Fit Bottomed Mamas has taught me anything (it’s obviously taught me LOTS), it’s that finding your true voice, passion and self is really the gateway to living your best life. We like to use fitness as a way to get there (we’re not the only ones to see the parallels between being your best and being active), but, really, any way for you to build self confidence can get you there. (And then, after that, you love yourself enough to continue being active and love life—hooray!)

think-bookSo when I read Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed Down World by journalist and trial attorney Lisa Bloom, I wanted to high-five her, chest-bump her and then write her a fan letter (this is, well, pretty much it). We’re fairly open about our guilty pleasures up in here, but she straight slapped me upside the head about what’s worth focusing on in life and what’s not. Magazine covers we unfairly compare ourselves to? Trash reality-television shows we favor over being informed about the events in the world? An insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip? Putting on a smile in front of a male boss instead of saying what we really think? Valuing beauty and thinness above all else, especially brains? Most of us can honestly say that we’ve done at least one of those things.

We’ve been dumbed down. Unfocused. Distracted. And—as Lisa Bloom so clearly and precisely argues in her book—we have not been thinking. So many brains wasted! We’ve spent so much time worrying about the size of our thighs or mourning the break-up of J-Lo and Marc Anthony that we miss out on living an informed and empowered life and all that it has to offer. There’s no doubt that smart woman DO THINGS…like change the world.

So just how is all of this remedied, you ask? Well, obviously thinking is the first step, not just zoning out in front of The Real Housewives of Orange County (right here, guilty as charged, Ms. Bloom!). The second? Reading. Reading books. Reading the newspaper. Reading smart blogs. Just gobbling up those words and information!

While some of the tone in the book can be a little harsh (again, she slapped me upside the head a few times, and I read a ton of books!), the message is clear and correct: THINK! —Jenn

 

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1 Comment
  1. caroline says:

    Anyone who cares about our civilization has been thinking these thoughts for years. Jenn, perhaps you might want to followup with “Ideas Have Consequences.” Happy Reading!

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