The hardest thing I've ever had to do is learn to love myself. When you've been taught since birth that you are not perfect and will not be perfect until you reach these "standards" set by the media, loving yourself for who you are can sometimes seem impossible. Personally, I didn't learn to love myself until a few years ago, and even now I still have second thoughts. This is not uncommon, as I think it is hard to fully accept yourself and your body without sometimes having insecurities. Not to mention, there's a lot of people that seem to think that loving yourself is vain and you should be shamed for being confident (which totally isn't the case, by the way).
One of the most uncomfortable situations to be in is one in which you feel like you aren't up to a certain standard unintentionally set by the group of people you're with. When you're surrounded by people with seemingly flawless hair, faces, and legs, you start comparing yourself to them and wondering why you don't look like they do. Whenever I have an insecurity, I find myself constantly looking at others to see if they look similar to me. For instance, I hate my nose and I'm consistently looking at other people's noses to see if their's look like mine in any way.
Something I do a lot, which may seem a bit weird, is that I often jokingly say "I love myself." For example, I make a lot of bad jokes and follow them up with "I love myself." I find that telling myself this--or anything--enough can lead to believing it when I say it. And you know what? I do love myself. I love my body, my face, my personality, my crappy jokes--all of it. I love myself. It took nearly two decades to come to terms with it, but I've finally done it. I no longer cringe every time I see a photo of myself, I don't analyze every inch of my body in the mirror, and I don't constantly try to change my personality to fit some weird standard I've made for myself (i.e., "being cool").
Something I aim to be able to do with my journalism degree is change the standards that the media sets for women. I want nothing more than to encourage women--and men--of all ages to love themselves for who they are, and not who they supposedly could be. I'd rather write magazine articles about learning to love yourself as you currently are than write ones that encourage young women to strive to reach an unhealthy (and sometimes impossible) standard of beauty. With my journalism degree, I don't want to just write the news; I want to inspire people to feel good about themselves--all of the time! Why do people want other people to hate themselves? Just to sell products/magazines/clothes? This type of backwards-marketing needs to stop and I can't wait to have the ability to put an end to it. All I really want is for other people to feel the same way I do about myself and I intend to try whatever it takes to do so.
