What’s Your Cause?

I am all sorts of sucking at life today. I went to ACL this weekend, and for any of you that know about ACL, it is a marathon music festival: 3 days and hundreds of bands. Needless to say, I am not really functioning today; it was totally worth it though. I wasn’t going to do a blog post today because I need to focus on my real job (aka my bank account is looking pretty sad). Just so you understand the intensity of ACL, this picture pretty much sums it up (photo credit: Crissy Borges).

However, I saw this article about Malalai Joya in Vice, and I felt the need to share. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Malalai is a BAD ASS…beyond a bad ass…I can’t even think of a word to truly describe how brave she is. She is a women’s rights activist and former member of Parliament in Afghanistan. For security reasons, she is forced to live underground and can never travel without armed guards. She is only 35, and has had seven assassination attempts on her life. Yet, she doesn’t let these things silence her. She is amazing.

Anyways, there has been a lot of buzz about her lately because she is doing a speaking tour in the US. Unfortunately, she isn’t coming to Texas. Road trip to Cali, anyone? If she is coming to your city, GO SEE HER (full schedule here).

I read this article while I was in the midst of pitching stories about easy holiday recipes, and all of the sudden cooking segments on pumpkin eggnog seem pretty ridiculous. Something I constantly struggle with is the question of: Am I doing enough for the greater good? I am a capable, healthy, privileged person, and I can be using my voice for something greater than dessert recipes.

I guess the point of this blog post is to ask you, What’s Your Cause? We all have something that makes us passionate.

For me, I hope to one day devote my life to ensuring that all women (that want to be) are financially self-sufficient. I know it sounds super girl power, and God forbid , maybe even a bit feminist, but it is really not. I think that if women around the world had skills to make their own money, there would be less sexual abuse, childhood marriage, and more equality overall. There is no question about it: money is power and freedom.