I will tell each and every one of you right now that perfect isn't possible, and if it were possible, then life would be utterly boring and terribly dreadful. What is there to challenge if we are good at everything? If we have nothing to work with or have fun with? And why in the hell are you feeling terrible about the shape of your nose or the color of your eyes, or even the thickness or thinness of your lips? Why are you beating yourself up over having a stomach when a stomach is supposed to be a part of the body? Why do we obsess over our hair and how it's too frizzy or poofy or flat or whatever your hair is? Why are we picking on ourselves and hating ourselves, and if we cannot love ourselves, how can we possibly love anyone else? If we're always living in someone else's shadow of perfection, than how can we, as humans, possibly be happy? To constantly be picking on ourselves is to constantly discourage others because we cannot be happy with the way we are. And if we aren't happy with the way we are, who is going to want to love us if they must live in fear of us seeing them as we see ourselves, picking at things that are different, odd, weird, but overall, wonderful about ourselves?
I grew up wondering what was wrong with me, and why I couldn't be happy. I constantly asked myself if I had the right looks and if I acted the right way. Then, one day, I woke up, and it occurred to me that I had been going about things all wrong. It did not matter if I had a thousand friends, or one. And it did not matter whether I had a boyfriend or not. It didn't matter if I had the power to capture a whole audience, or just one person's attention. The important thing was that I needed to accept who I was, and to do that, I had to explore who I was. Exploring my interior and my exterior made me realize that I loved my big feet. They were big, but they were healthy and beautiful. I had gigantic hands, but wonderful words came from the way I wrote with them. I gave birth to drawings and baked goods, and my hands were big enough to hold someone else's hands when they needed to find the comforting touch of someone they loved and cared about. I used to not like my eyes, and then one day I fell in love with the color variation and how I could manipulate it with eye makeup. My poofy, wavy hair was thick and full, and I could do so much with it concerning new hair styles. I hated my body and my stomach until I was able to find ways to show my curves without being embarrassed by them, and once I found the right fit, I loved my body just the way it was. And all of these aspects are things that I still love about myself very dearly. I realized my mistakes were things that someone else could easily love about me because they were a part of my individuality and who I was.
At one point, I believed that I led a boring life, and that there was nothing to contribute. I was a waste of space that no one really even cared about. But I decided that I was boring because I wasn't living, and without living, I couldn't develop my own thoughts and opinions and personal views about life. So I stopped being boring and took interest in things that I found curious or out of the ordinary. I began to educate myself by visiting internet sources and reading books and surrounding myself with people who loved to talk about life and love and academics. I began to watch the world in a different way, and I realized that I hadn't been thinking or seeing clearly. My happiness was solely dependent upon me. With that in mind, I sought out good friends and learned from bad ones. I learned lessons through disappointment and a long history of always losing and never winning. And if there was ever an instance where I did win at something, even if it was small, I took notes in my mind on what I did right and went from there. Eventually I got to a place of self-satisfaction, and now that I am happy with myself and my accomplishments, body image, thoughts, and effort to make this world, these people, and myself better, I strive to keep loving everything I used to hate. I strive to love myself internally and externally, and ultimately, it has only become an advantage that I never used to have. People can love me for who I am because I love myself, and if I can love who I am, mistakes and all, then I can love you for all that you are too.
So child, friend, acquaintance, stranger... please don't hate yourself for who you are. Please don't pick on the things that you think are wrong with you, because I find the things that you think are mistakes, and I fall in love with those things because they make up the uniqueness of who you are. Do not beat yourself up over the things you have done wrong, or the failures you have experienced. Don't tell yourself that you are ugly, unimportant, and worthless. Don't question how anyone could possibly love you because you're not happy with the way you see yourself. Look at your imperfections. Look at all of them. Make note of them, and focus on them, because even though you may not like these things, you have them for reasons no one else does, and that's kind of cool. Those imperfections are important. Don't hate them. Love your mistakes and cradle them in your arms, because great things are going to become of them. They have the power to change, to influence, and to make your life worth more than you could ever imagine it to be. Not only that, but once you love yourself, other people will love you too, because they'll know that if you can love your flaws, then you can love theirs, too. If we aren't focusing on perfection, and instead, on loving what is naturally given to us, then we can all achieve what we're striving to be: accepted.
Darling, when you beat yourself up over the things that make you beautiful, it makes me very sad inside, because you are so much more than you give yourself credit for, and I wish you could see just how amazing you are in my eyes.
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