Every morning, I wake up and sleepily trudge to the bathroom. After I manage to put my contacts in without poking one of my eyes out, I check my cheeks for new pimples, my upper lip for my ever-lurking mustache, my eyebrows for my creeping unibrow, and my sun-tanned skin, which is so unlike that of the fair Goddesses who Indian girls are taught to idolize.
At some point in my life, recognizing all of my so-called physical flaws would have been taxing on my self-esteem. Now, however, my pimples and the marks that they leave behind remind me of the freckles that I always wanted to pepper my cheeks. I lovingly refer to my mustache as Thelma and my unibrow as Louise (Do you get the reference?), since I love to bring them up through my own unique brand of self-deprecating humor. Even my tanned skin seems to have character to it, and I think about all of the funny ways that make-up companies try to describe my skin tone (Honey-Almond-Powder anyone?).
I have a lot of attributes that could be seen as physical flaws. My eyes kind of bug out, my nose is a bit crooked, I’m too short, too small, and I'm not curvaceous enough. I know that I’m never going to fit society’s definition of “hot.”
You know what? I’m OK with it.
The journey to this acceptance wasn’t an easy one in any way. I went through years of countless hair-removal products, skin-lighting formulas, and hiding my buggy eyes behind thick glasses. Putting myself down day after day after day, though, was simply exhausting. I tried to fight my low self-esteem by changing myself and that clearly that wasn’t working. One day, however, my attack strategy against low self-esteem shifted. Instead of trying to change all of my “flaws,” I started to take a hard look at why exactly I put my large eyes, my hooked nose, and my dark skin in that category.
As soon as I tried to ask myself who or what planted those little whispers of insecurity in my mind, all of my “flaws” began to unravel before me. What we see as attractive or desirable has been arbitrarily dictated by society and, because of that, I believe that everyone has the power to change the effects that their so-called flaws have.
This realization can be hard to wrap your mind around. Aren’t I just being bitter? Am I just being a coward, angrily shaking my fist at society instead of dealing with my problems? Aren’t I just not trying hard enough to be beautiful? Am I just not up to par?
I actually think it’s quite the opposite. Making the decision to essentially flip off society takes a lot of internal strength and security in who you are as a person. Many people get a majority of their self esteem from external validation and choosing to find that validation within yourself is truly impressive.
We all have our bad days, of course, and sometimes I wish that my eyes were just a bit smaller, my skin a bit fairer, and my nose a teeny bit straighter. I’d like to think I take these days in stride, though. I don’t shove these feelings down and ignore them. I welcome them and try to understand exactly what happened that day to make me feel that way. The answer changes day-by-day, but, at the end of my introspective session, I always ask myself: would I change who I am right now at this very moment—my brain, my “flaws,” my life goals, my sense of humor, my passion, and everything else that makes me who I am—to be someone who society considers “hot”? Every time, without fail, I answer no.
This journey is a hard one to make. Struggling for so long with my self-esteem and finally learning to see my “flaws” as strong points, however, has made me into the person who I am today. I know who I am. I am strong, passionate, a bit of a cry-baby sometimes, funny, and hard working. My supposed flaws and the journey that I embarked on to accept them made me the person who I am today and I’m grateful for that.
Someone once said about me, quite condescendingly, I might add, that I had a cliché for every situation. It only seems fitting, then, to end this article with the cliché-filled closing narration from the 42nd episode of "The Twilight Zone." The episode follows a woman who is so disgusting that her face has to be bandaged, and it ends with the revelation that the woman was actually a conventionally attractive woman stuck in a society full of deformed monsters. Rod Serling dictates the take away brilliantly:
“Now the questions that come to mind: 'Where is this place and when is it? What kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm?' You want an answer? The answer is it doesn't make any difference, because the old saying happens to be true. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence. On this planet or wherever there is human life—perhaps out amongst the stars—beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Well put, Rod Serling.
