We are supposed to be the generation that could really change the world, but instead we are too focused on changing ourselves: makeup, clothes, cosmetic procedures, cosmetic surgeries, lasers, hair removal, waxes and more.
Vanity is taking over, and there is a point when it becomes too much, and we are selling ourselves out.
I think it is easy to get carried away in all of these cosmetic glamours, especially as a young female in the year 2016.
This is not to say males don’t also experience these same pressures, but hey, I’m a girl, so I’m writing from girl’s perspective!
It is so easy to look at someone who appears to be perfect and glamorous and think 'if I was more like her then I would be perfect too.'
Because of this, I thought perfect would make me happy. I thought perfect skin, perfect lips, perfect teeth and perfect hair - just like all of those perfect girls in the magazines - would make me happy.
Newsflash. It absolutely did not.
In fact, I was less happy with myself than ever before. I had this idea of what I thought I needed in order to be happy, and boy did I think I was ahead of the rest. I really thought I had this happiness thing all figured out.
I had never been so wrong.
I was trying to build myself up with material items and unrealistic goals that could only leave me one of two things in the end: feeling empty or wanting more which are both slippery slopes.
I started to forget what truly matters in life.
One person I really admire is Essena O’Neill. She was a wildly followed Instagram model: beautiful, put-together, adventurous and perfect.
Except she was not perfect, and she knew that, and the pressures escalated and eventually got to her, so she completely revealed her true self, quit her job on social media, and gave away all of her secrets. If you watch her video where she quits social media, she reveals how each of her “perfect and adventurous” Instagram pictures took MANY tries to get it right - showing nothing was really candid. She was covered in hours of hair and makeup, and she had gotten extremely underweight in order to make the pictures look a certain way.
Here is a link about O'Neill's social media resignation if you want to get better insight on her. Also, this is one of her Instagram photos where she went back and re-edited her captions from the originals in order to expose the real stories behind her photos.
What she did was courageous and inspirational. It spoke volumes to me. I finally realized that it was all in my head and that this perfect I so desperately strived for was not real. It did not exist, and it never would exist.
Life is not about appearing perfect. Life is about being the best possible version of yourself. It is about loving life, living life, and inspiring others.
So be you, not perfect, because it does not even exist.
