“Wear what you want to wear”- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie advises women

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has advised women to own themselves and understand that it is important to live life on their own terms knowing they don’t have to do what others expect of them.

She made this statement during an interview with CNN African voices.

The Americanah author said:

Wear what you want to wear.

I say that as kind of a joke. But in a larger sense, I think it would be, don’t think you have to do what people want you to do.

Increasingly, in part of growing older for me, I’m 41, and when I was 30, when I was 27, I think I was a lot more invested in kind of thinking about what people expected and what people wanted. And I think it’s mentally exhausting to do that. And, you take away from yourself, the energy that you could have used to do things that are actually meaningful to you.

Now, I feel old and wise and I would say to that younger version of myself, and actually I’ll say also to young women all over the world to, it’s so important not to think that you have to perform for somebody else.

It’s really important to, what I like to call own yourself.

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“Don’t think you have to do what people want you to do,” Nigerian author @chimamanda_adichie advises young women to exercise freedom over their choices and not have to perform for somebody else. #IWD2019 #AfricanVoices10 @cnnvision

A post shared by CNN Africa (@cnnafrica) on Mar 8, 2019 at 8:47am PST