7 Lessons from Carrie Bradshaw

Many people say that “there’s nothing like being young.” You soak in the sun without worrying about sunscreen, first kisses bring sleepless nights and endless dreams, your heart skips a beat every time you get a text because you wonder if it’s them – a first love puts you on cloud nine and makes you feel like you are the only person in the universe. Then we remember the days we spent crying from not getting a text in return, being under insurmountable levels of stress during exams, fighting with your mom over what clothes you could wear, trying to figure out who you were while everyone else already seemed so sure of themselves.

Carrie asserts in the famous series “Sex and the City” that real youth hits at 30. Your friends are the ones you have chosen and the others have already fallen by the wayside, and not receiving a response from a guy you like turns into a “What are you doing today, girls?” or a “His loss.” Here are some of her more ‘transcendental’ lessons:

1. When you stop going out to “hook up” but rather to have a good time, you’ll find that more interesting things start happening.

Make yourself seem interesting so some guy will come up to you? Ha, yeah right. Once you hit your 30s you already know how interesting you are (not that you weren’t interesting in the first place, but you finally start believing it). So when you take initiative and talk to a guy, you don’t do so in a way that radiates desperation, but rather in a way that radiates confidence and a simple desire for good conversation because, hey, the night is young!

2. Writing is therapeutic

Carrie is a bit neurotic (her head just doesn’t stop spinning) but that swirl of ideas seems to make sense when she sits in front of her computer. It seems a bit impersonal – a woman with a screen – but it’s her main time for reflection and peace.

After something happens to her, she tries to make sense of it through her writing, but avoids making it seem somehow exemplary of how one should deal with things. She writes about what happens to try and connect with those that read her famous column each week. Nothing seems as chaotic as it really is, written on paper or on a screen, and when it’s written with complete sincerity and doesn’t present any hidden ideologies, you establish an automatic connection with readers. Therefore, she teaches us that you can be fragile and human – you can be a complete mess – and at the same time, you can be wonderful.

3. High heels don’t make you fabulous. How you wear them makes you fabulous.

Carrie’s fascination with “her Manolos” can seem purely superficial and materialistic. But it is much more than that. The shoes are a metaphor for her life.

But it’s useless to spend a fortune on shoes if you don’t think they’re wonderful for you and fit your life.

So, walk tall and strong; you might not have a man at your side to support you if you fall, but single women should find their own ways of keeping on their feet without help from someone else. For Carrie, “her Manolos” aren’t just a luxury – it’s a way of thinking that the journey ahead is something she can conquer on her own with little effort. But with style, of course.

4. The search for love is a long, hard journey. But it’s worth it in the end.

She doesn’t pretend when she’s in love, or when she’s broken-hearted. She doesn’t use any strategies and doesn’t look for shortcuts; she makes mistakes and she’s impulsive, but she believes in the magic of love. She’s looking for the kind of love which is not chosen but felt, and with which you decide to stay in the end with all of your reason and your heart. She is a brave woman that doesn’t content herself with the first boy who falls in love with her if she doesn’t think that she can reciprocate his feelings equally. For her, love is being yourself. It’s feeling fulfilled just by giving love and not expecting anything in return.

5. Good friends ease life’s pains, and the love is forever.

The facts show, friends have healing powers, and good friends are a reflection of what we unconsciously value – they are our alter ego, seen from the outside. Sometimes friends fight, or become distant, but a good friend is the best medicine for when your soul is sad.

6. Don’t try to change yourself or stifle your passion to try to seem ‘right’ for a man.

When Mr. Big (the nickname of Carrie’s great love in the series) is about to marry someone else, Carrie is filled with doubt. She talks to her friends about the possibility that she is too complicated, and that she would have to be a different, more simple kind of girl to be able to eventually marry. This is when Carrie decides to really analyze her relationship with Mr. Big in an attempt to find some answers and passes by his engagement party to ask him directly. His answer is vague, but Carrie reaches some sort of closure with his unspoken explanation, and turns to walk away in peace. She sees an owner with their horse trying to restrain it, but the horse acts wild and seems disgruntled at the thought of being tamed.

7. Your relationships with other people are exciting, but the most exciting one you can have is with yourself.

At the end of the series, we reach a moment where we understand all of the prior seasons.  Carrie Bradshaw is a woman in search of love, but above all, a woman in search of herself.