On choosing conflicting battles wisely

This is one of the most obvious understatements in the world: human beings are complex and often downright frustrating creatures.

Self-exploration and defining your place in the world is difficult enough without having to deal with unsolicited and misguided opinions thrown in your direction. As multi-faceted people, our internal battles are all over the place.

This is a brief, non-exhaustive list of issues that have made me want to hit my head against a wall on several occasions:

The idea that Jewish background + Christian beliefs automatically = Messianic Jew (it doesn’t. It’s a bit more complicated than that).

That being a Christian, period = hating gays, believing atheists have no morals, forcing beliefs on the nation by turning them into laws.

That feminism = bra-burning, man-hating, always pro-choice, anti-shaving extremist (I’ve had the privilege of meeting a handful of married, stay-at-home, religious, self-described feminists. They are real. I promise. And we all generally want the same thing: to be treated like human beings).

That English major = future English teacher (nope, not me).

That author = famous and made of money (HAHAHAHA…not even close).

That self-published author = not a 'legitimate' author (self-published books are on Amazon like all other “legitimately published” books. If it’s made of paper or downloadable via Kindle and you paid for it from a major distributor, it’s a book, dangit).

That being raped or assaulted always = brutally attacked by a stranger hiding in the bushes, because it can never happen in a relationship with someone you actually know (more on that here)

Your own list may look similar, or completely different. It’s easy for me to lose patience, to write off the people who question me as completely ignorant or even stupid. There are battles, and then there is the battle to pick your battles, because you simply can’t afford to lose it every time someone misunderstands an aspect of your life.

I’ve decided to pick three of the above “battles” as educational fields; my defining markers in life: Being a Christian, because that’s who I am; rape culture awareness/feminist issues, because those have affected me personally; and misconceptions about being an indie author, because that is my chosen profession. Even one of those issues results in a fully loaded plate, and I wish I didn’t have such a random lot to choose from.  I felt like a freak for a while, until one day I realized that no one’s life is lived completely in a vacuum. It’s okay to stand for multiple things, and the best way to stand for something is to be an effective teacher of it.

I’m always curious to learn more about how people deal with ignorance regarding who they are, or what they’ve been through. Now is your chance to educate me: what are your battle fields?