What an absolute privilege it has been to have a website dedicated to people focusing on confidence, self-improvement, apps that make their lives easier, and products that improve their appearance.
As a straight, white, female who was born in the United States, has had access to healthcare, education, and a comfortable lifestyle for the entirety of my existence - I am privileged. I have done absolutely nothing to deserve these luxuries. Privilege is quite literally the result of chance. This luck I was born into has allowed me to create a site sharing ideas about ways to save yourself time or improve the quality of your hair.
Lately, for many hours of my day, my mind no longer resides in the luxurious focus that I once had at the inception of this website. Far more pressing issues have presented themselves.
Refined Bliss will continue to be a source of positivity and self-care. But it will also be a source of humanitarian ideals. What I plea of those who come to this site is that you visit to find healing and solace. I hope it becomes a place you come to recharge, and then go out into the world and fight the good fight. We all need a safe haven. We cannot pour from an empty cup. So I urge you to come get filled, but then go out. And with your healthy, strong, cared-for-self, do good in this world.
Humanitarianism calls for no distinction to be made on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, race, caste, age, religion, ability, or nationality. It calls for kindness, benevolence, and sympathy to be extended to all human beings. Refined Bliss stands for these ideals. My hope is that my fellow humans are also humanitarians.
"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, (the religion they belong to, the country they come from, the people they love, the gender they identify with, their XX chromosomes), but by the content of their character." - Martin Luther King Jr. (and me)
Character is defined as the moral qualities distinctive to an individual. I look to a day when we judge others solely by the caliber of their morality.
Our world is good and beautiful not because we are all the same, but because we are all different. We have the power to instill justice and acceptance in our free and wonderful country if we can come together. It is a delicate and difficult balance to demand justice while instilling peace, but it is possible.
To those of you who do not feel the weight of our nation's issues on your shoulders I urge you to reflect on the poem below by Martin Niemöller.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. - Martin Niemöller on Nazi Germany
I believe in helping each other for the sake of helping each other. I believe in seeking to understand. I believe that when we truly love ourselves, we are able to love others more freely. So on Refined Bliss we will continue to take care of ourselves, but we will also remember to take care of our neighbors. Life is a privilege. Having the capacity to help others is the ultimate privilege. Let us use our privilege well.