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Dear Simone Biles, Generating Outstanding Awareness Tenaciously! This week the world witnessed a great skill: the Biles Refusal—executed by saying no to golden promises to say yes to priceless health—delivered with grace. Thank you for your life affirming example. You are courage personified. Your actions have inspired me to set boundaries I thought were not possible because of the weight of expectations. Too often I have sacrificed my health for seemingly golden achievements and implicitly tied my worth to high performance. Too often I have put my needs last to please other people. Too often I have said no to my own happiness as if it were some noble sacrifice to be a martyr for a cause. Too often I have felt obligated to achieve even more than I already have in order to prove those who doubt my intelligence and worth wrong. Too often I have committed to near impossible workloads, because I can. The Biles Refusal is a beautiful reminder of the power of saying yes to your well-being.
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Joy Buolamwini (Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines)