Have you ever looked in the mirror, and wondered who you are? Maybe you didn’t like the way you looked. You weren’t proud of that person, so you covered him/her with makeup, hair products, or fashionable outfits, but something was still missing. Maybe you didn’t recognize this person because that person was hidden. You’re not alone.

There are times I look into the mirror, and there’s a stranger in front of me. I never feel good enough, and cannot recognize that my external self-image is what makes me, me. I don’t need to look my best to love myself, although society seems to want to tell us otherwise.

This is the problem with our generation. We focus so much on pleasing others that we don’t take a moment to be proud of that person in the mirror. We put so much pressure on ourselves to reach societal perfection to be accepted just like everybody else. What’s wrong with this picture is that, soon enough, everyone is going to be the same.

A few weeks ago I wrote a song about my own self-image. As one who struggles with my image, and is constantly working to “better” it, I found there was no better place to begin writing a song than right here. When I started writing the song, it was generally about what I’ve observed within society, and my own group of friends growing up. There always seemed to be a competition to look “better” than the other, or “fit in” more than the rest. Soon thereafter, I realized this song wasn’t only about society, but about myself. The lyrics are as follows:

"Look in the mirror. What do you see?
The face of a stranger staring back at me.
Her eyes are tired, her soul is weak.
There's something about her that needs to be freed.
And it's difficult to say she's beautiful
She's not beautiful to me.
Look at that stranger. What do you see?
Her imperfections instead of her beauty.
Her hair lays wrong, her skin is scarred.
Everything seems broke, but she still works so hard.
But it's difficult to say she's not beautiful...
She is beautiful.
Take it off, all it is you're trying to hide under.
Beauty lies in the person you are in side.
Here I am, it's myself I have to find.
So, I'll look in the mirror. What do I see?
The face of a girl, and that girl is me." - Ariana Nunez

I hope this song gets one important message across: your self-image has nothing to do with who you are inside. If you are a kind person, your acne isn’t going to change that. If you are funny, no one will think you are boring because of the bags under your eyes. If you are intelligent, a bit of frizzy hair won’t make you less than so.

This is why it’s important to focus on internal beauty, rather than external image. While I look into that mirror and fail to recognize the stranger within it, I am simply focusing on my external image, thus causing my external self to lack confidence. I am not happy with my curls that lay the wrong way, or the eczema scars that cover my face, and it hurts me. However, everything about me tells a story — my story. I don’t need to cover my story in makeup. I have to find myself, instead.

Have you ever looked into the mirror and thought, “this is me… this is who I want to be… I am proud”? Well, it’s about damn time we started to impress ourselves, and only ourselves.

You can watch my video here. I hope this message is as helpful to others at it is to me.