Asking For What You Want

"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."

— Nora Ephron

Context

Ephron delivered this line during a 1996 commencement address at Wellesley College, her alma mater, addressing graduating women entering a world still shaped by limited expectations. She wasn't offering comfort — she was issuing a directive. The word choice matters: 'heroine,' not survivor, not bystander. Ephron had spent her career watching women narrate their own lives as things that happened to them rather than things they authored. The line cuts against a cultural instinct to explain hardship through what was done to us. Read today, it resists the modern impulse to build identity around grievance, insisting instead that agency — however limited by circumstance — is always available to claim.

Reflection Question

Where in your life right now are you describing yourself as something that happened to, rather than someone who acted — and what would change if you rewrote that sentence?

Application Tip

Tonight, write down one situation from this week where you felt wronged or stuck. Rewrite it twice: once as a victim narrating events done to you, once as a heroine describing choices you made or could still make. Notice the shift in tone and possibility between the two versions. Keep the second version. Tomorrow, pick one small action from that heroine version and actually do it — send the email, make the call, set the boundary. Repeat this weekly until reframing becomes automatic rather than an exercise.