This 2-Minute Film About the Dangers of Holding Yourself Back Took My Breath Away
Erin Alphonso
March 8, 2019
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The other day, I was talking with my husband about the myriad challenges of raising kids. Ah, parenthood. It breaks your heart and rebuilds it over and over again. We started discussing how our educational system rewards certain traits in kids, while trying to squash others. The message is clear: Conform, and succeed. But squelching parts of you that are a unique gift and great strength is not the way to success (at best), and harmful to your soul (at worst).

Imagine if Prince had squelched aspects of his personality in order to conform. Imagine the tragedy of Prince diminishing his own genius so he could be like everyone else (whoever “everyone else” is). The world would be so much poorer for what he could have contributed but didn’t allow himself.

Be unapologetically yourself. The world needs you. And watch this two-minute film from brilliant Minneapolis filmmaker Nic Askew.

Thanks to Nic for allowing me to share his work.

1 Comment

  1. Clara
    Clara on March 8, 2019 at 1:15 pm

    Laura, such a great post! Though you had mentioned Nick’s work before, this is the first creation of his that I watch: unbelievably beautiful and powerful!
    I also remember you mentioned Prince’s father wanting him to get a regular Summer job when Prince was a teenager and him refusing with all himself (is this accurate?) because he couldn’t be told what to do and especially waste his genius making sandwiches or flipping hamburgers… Thanks to that drive and resolution he went on to be the extraordinary person he was and become one of the most unique artists that made history!

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