Rule Number #2: Use all your gifts, play all your cards
30 years old, 30 rules for life (as I envision it)
My grandfather, who was my favourite man on earth, used to say, “Love needs no explanation, hate needs proper arguments”. Meaning that if you love something, there’s not much need to explain why, as long as you love, that is a good enough reason. But if you have to go to the length of hating on something or someone, you better have some good points to back those nasty feelings with.
That’s why I set out to know as much as possible about Machiavelli, who is widely attributed with this quote in Italy, “the end justifies the means”, which I completely disagree with. But the moral precept of my grandfather has at least made me less ignorant over the years, certainly not less inclined to strong opinions. Still, thanks to that life motto, I found out poor Machiavelli never even wrote that. Still, I do not think the end justifies the means. At all. Perhaps “how” one achieves things is relevant to me, because my true end is to become a person I truly admire. And “how” you do and obtain things changes you for sure in the process.
Still, this is a long premise to show you where my baseline was and how I came up with rule number #2. It is out of regret, for not having played all my cards, for not having used all my gifts for the excess of moral rightfulness. The premise is also to put my hands forward as I realised the first gift I haven’t used nearly enough is my beauty, and I realise that will raise some brows. But I get where you are coming from because I too was this morally uncompromising person, who overly romanticised the underdog story, sacrifice above everything, playing fairly. But playing life, which is by all means an unfair game, without using all your unfair advantages for fear of bending the rules, is subconsciously playing to lose.
There are two unfair advantages that life has granted me with and I have not nearly used enough: beauty and the ability to always attract important people. Like, truly important. And it took me a conversation with Father Alessandro with a glass or two of limoncello at the friary’s table to come to the conclusion I haven’t been this master of ethics I used to consider myself, but more of a fool who didn’t truly wish to win. He said I have been “ungrateful to the gifts God granted me with”. Damn, Father Alessandro is never one to sugar coat it. And then he knows my weaknesses so well because he came up with a banger quote from one of the smartest women to ever live, from Saint Teresa of Avila, along the lines of paying a great compliment to God if we ask of ourselves great things and that lukewarm is never good. But I know, I am losing some of you with my clericalism, so to balance things out, I posted the below meme from a page you will disapprove of even more.
As a child, I was ugly. Only my mother doesn’t accept the evidence by now. Back in Albania, all the kids in the neighbourhood would organise an annual beauty contest. We had a lot of stashes, the most prestigious one was “Miss Building”, then “Miss Elegance” and “Miss Congeniality”. Now, as a child, I was way more inclined to listen to my instincts, and I realised pretty quickly that if I had any chances, that was at best on “Miss Congeniality”. So every year, I’d be part of the organisation, hoping that all my hustle would pay off with that stash, and you wouldn’t think that about Albania, but at that level, corruption did not work. So I never got the Miss Congeniality stash despite creating the stashes myself and painting them. Each time, I’d go back home to my mother and aunt Moza, telling me, “others are just jealous, they conjure against you for sure,” while her son, Gersi, would crack up and say, “you are just ugly”, and then we would wrestle. I admire the fact that I never gave up, but when I started to lose my ugly duckling appearance, my friends and I were too old to care about the beauty pageant contest. I never won those, but when I could have, I was unable to use that advantage. That’s pretty idiotic.
At 19, I started to model because I wanted to rebel against my parents. Beauty in my house was dismissed. Anything that could make me remotely disengaged from studies and engaged with the male species was highly discouraged and frowned upon. Make-up, nail polish, skirts? In my household, caring too much about physical appearances was considered vulgar. And vulgarity was a high offence. Then last time I was ever involved in that world, I was at the Elite Models context, I passed the height test, and then when I had to do the walk, I fainted and woke up to my mother half-cursing me, half pushing strawberry pastries down my throat. I had not eaten that day, and it was my first day of periods. I did not particularly fit there, to be honest. For a lot of reasons, but the main one being that I had boobs.
For the rest, when I saw that my parents were not as incensed by my meddling in the fashion world because they saw I kept being the teacher’s pet I had always been, I stopped being interested in beauty as a tool. Beauty for me was a rebellion tool. But I regret I ignored it so much, outside of that short window of time in my life. When you dismiss your gifts, they become impalpable to others, too or less evident. That was not a good move. I was a nobody in a city and university where all people had important last names, and I insisted on playing even when the game wasn’t even from the start. Was that my innate pride? I believe so.
I have a friend who has taken the habit of telling me and others how beautiful I was when I was in Uni, how thin my legs were compared to what they are now. And I wanted to shout back to him “why didn’t you tell me back then bitch of a man?”. Why didn’t he tell me when I would have needed it the most? When I felt invisible and such a loser among all those girls called Lavinia. But this is precisely the point I am trying to make here: if you do not identify your gifts and do not nourish and play by them, do not expect to encounter too many enlighted people who are going to point those out to you and encourage you. People are so concerned with their smallness, they truly have no time to remind you about any greatness of yours. Or perhaps, they did see something that makes you potentially great but fear that if you open your eyes to it, you wouldn’t be seen in the same room anymore. Those losers who are so silent on your gifts or judge you when you try to lean on them would be the first to play those cards if they had the chance to do so. And you, are you truly going to be mediocre out of an allegiance to losers? It is valid for any gift that makes your life easier and does not hurt others. God dammit, use it. Because those who criticise you would not think about it in a heartbeat.
I also had the luck of meeting some angels, people who realise there’s cake for everybody. That other people growing won’t dim their light. But they are a minority. So you better permit yourself to play all your cards, use all your gifts if you set out to win, not just wing it. Check yourself out. Perhaps what you call moral height is cowardice towards life, unnecessary glamourisation of pain.