Sunday, March 22, 2026
The Pink Ribbon Policy: Choosing Joy Over Bitterness
We’ve all had that "glass-shattering" moment—the second you realize a story you’ve believed about your life, your family, or your identity was actually a carefully constructed fiction.
Discovering that things aren't what they seem is a universal human experience, but the real challenge isn’t the discovery itself. It’s how you choose to walk away from the wreckage. Do you let the false narrative define your future, or do you decide to love your life in spite of the lies?
The Goodman Brown Trap
In my late teens and early 20s, I encountered Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. If you missed that day in lit class, here’s the gist: A young man leaves his wife, Faith, to run an errand in a dark forest. While there, he witnesses a nightmare: his pious neighbors and even his beloved Faith are participating in a dark, sinful ceremony. As he sees his wife’s pink ribbon flutter down from the sky, he cries out, “My Faith is gone!”
He returns to town a changed man. But he isn't changed for the better. He spends the rest of his life as a bitter, suspicious, and miserable soul because he can no longer see people—he can only see their sins.
Back then, my takeaway was a shallow, "Wow, that’s deep. Things are never as they seem." I understood the deception, but I didn't yet understand the danger of the reaction.
When the Narrative Shifts
The true lesson didn't fully process until recently, following a reunion with my biological father. When certain narratives in my own life were finally held up to the light, I saw the "pink ribbons" falling everywhere.
I had a choice to make:
Become like Goodman Brown—shroud myself in bitterness and let the deception of others poison my perspective.
Build a new narrative based on a higher truth.
While Goodman Brown shouted that his faith was gone, I found myself whispering something different: “My faith is not gone. My faith is not gone.”
Why Refuse Bitterness?
Choosing to be embittered by lies is, to put it bluntly, a waste of your power. When we stay angry at those who started false narratives, we are essentially giving the architects of those lies a permanent seat at our table.
The God of my faith is not a man that He should lie. People are fallible. They hide things, they protect themselves with tall tales, and they sometimes misguide us for years. But if your faith is rooted in something deeper than the honesty of flawed humans, the "shattering" of a human narrative doesn't have to break you.
Moving Forward: Your New Script
If you’ve discovered a false narrative in your life, remember that the truth didn't change who you are—it only changed what you know. You are still the author of the next chapter.
Acknowledge the deception: Don’t gaslight yourself. It happened.
Release the architect: Forgiving those who started the lie isn’t about saying what they did was okay; it’s about deciding they don’t get to hold the pen anymore.
Reclaim your joy: Choose to be happy as an act of defiance against the lie.
Don't spend your old age looking at the world through the lens of what was hidden from you. Look at it through the lens of what you have found: your own strength.
Bye for now! xoxo
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