When lIfe cIrcumstances change, so can your mInd. Just ask about-facer Meg Mason

1. (opinion)
much more open to new things. “It’s easy to be strident and see
your identity as tied up in the things you do and don’t do. But
it’s actually OK to change your mind.”
Can you ever shake the feeling of phoniness, though?
Especially when you’ve been vocal about your original position?
“I did a science degree and became a nurse,” explains blogger
and humorist Meg Bignell, “because I always said I’d never be
a whingeing creative. I also said I’d never marry a farmer. Then
I married a farmer and now I’m a writer. It’s ironic to everyone.”
Even though friends are wont to point out just how much she’s
changed, Bignell has a solution that we all – lapsed vegetarians
and thrice-married A-listers alike – would do well to emulate:
“I just pretend I never said it.”
never
SAY NEVER
“we swear we’ll never, ever have Botox, understand
Game of thrones, be a cat person, join lInkedin or
wear a onesie – right up until we do”
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Follow meg on Twitter @meg_mason
promises, promises
Will these celebrities take it all back?
Only time will tell…
Lady Gaga will never have
plastic surgery: “I think promoting
insecurity in the form of plastic
surgery is infinitely harmful.”
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Heidi Klum will never be
a cougar: “I don’t think
I could deal with waking
up next to a 25-year-old.”
gwYneth paltrow will
never low-road Apple’s dinner:
“I would rather die than let
my kid eat Cup a Soup.”
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Kate Moss will never
wear sweatpants: “I’ll
never dress like a wife.”
photography: Andrea Varani/Folio-ID.com, noel kessel, ap, imagenet
I
been like, ‘Absolutely not! Red flag!’ But if my goal is to find a
great relationship and I’ve ruled out anyone with children, holding
my position will eventually start costing me.”
“I always said I’d never have a traditional wedding,” says the
author Sarah Ayoub, who grew up in Sydney as part of a large
Lebanese family. But after she met and fell in love with “an Anglo,
and nearly killed my parents in the process”, hanging on to her
dream of a quirky hipster wedding suddenly didn’t feel worth it.
“So, after I swore I’d never have a big, fat Lebanese wedding,”
Ayoub says, “I ended up with Lebanese folk-dancing and poetry,
bonbonnières and 330 guests just from my side. I still look back and
think, ‘What happened?’”
Real life got in the way of a theory, is what happened, the way
it tends to – especially once children are involved. Parenting is
an absolute locus of about-face-ery.
Before novelist Penni Russon had children, “I always said I was
going to keep calm and be a nice mum. I was never going to raise
my voice and I was definitely never going to swear in front of my
children.” Three babies in, Russon says, and “reality has asserted
itself. I swear around them all the time.”
Although at first she felt “completely anguished” about falling short
of her standards, Russon now believes that “if you’re making conscious
decisions to do or not do something, it probably means you’re not
that person. Eventually, you’ll default to who you really are.”
And sometimes, being wrong turns out great. Amanda Woods, a
radio producer and travel writer, always insisted she was “not a cruise
person. The idea of a cruise just went against my entire travel ethos.”
When a friend invited her to his 40th – a cruise – Woods had to
get on board. “And I loved it.” As a result, Woods says, she’s now
INTRODUCES
Penni Russon’s Only Ever Always (Allen & Unwin, $16.99) and Sarah
Ayoub’s Hate is Such a Strong Word (Harper Collins, $17.99) are out
now. Visit Amanda Woods at adventuresallaround.com and Meg
Bignell at megoracle.com.
when life circumstances change, so can
your mind. Just ask about-facer meg mason
never feel more fickle than when I’m sitting down to a nice bit
of Scotch fillet. Because for nearly a decade, I was a vegetarian.
Not the bacon-on-weekends and don’t-worry-about-chickenstock kind, but a vociferous ‘vegenazi’ who would start up on
vivisection just as you put the Sunday roast on the table. I swore
I would never, ever eat meat.
And then I did. A slight shift in circumstances (pregnancy) was
all it took for me to chuck in a position I’d been so fervent about.
Am I flaky? Yes. Am I alone? Absolutely not, I realised while
reading up on Halle Berry’s recent nuptials over a chicken sandwich.
Back in 2007, Berry swore she’d never marry again, after two painful
divorces and an acrimonious split from long-time partner Gabriel
Aubry. Six years later, and here she is: Mrs Olivier Martinez.
Why are we so prone to back-pedalling? So quick to abandon
beliefs we once considered core to our very identity? We swear we’ll
never, ever have Botox, understand Game of Thrones, be a cat person,
join LinkedIn or wear a onesie – right up until we do.
“Most of our decision-making and beliefs are contextual,”
explains psychologist Jocelyn Brewer. “When circumstances change,
or we have a different experience of a situation that’s positive, it helps
to rattle our ideas and we’re able to shift our perception. We see
something in a totally different light. It’s called cognitive flexibility
and there are real benefits to it.”
It means, as in Berry’s case, that when a long-held position stops
working for us, we’re able to adapt and move on. “It’s important to
be able to stop and ask, ‘Is this belief actually serving my goals?’”
says Brewer, who (in an effort to practise what she preaches) not only
abandoned her own vegetarian diet this year, but also started dating
a man with a child from a previous relationship: “Once, I would have
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victoria Beckham will never
sing in public: “I will never do
it again in a professional way.”
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Amanda Seyfried will
never do total nudity:
“I’m pretty sure I would
never do a full frontal in
a movie… I wouldn’t
really want to show that.”
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ASMI 22802-0913