I can already hear the criticism coming in from the people that will read this who know me. Many of my friends know that I like to keep in shape. I have a extremely active lifestyle, from my job to the general things I do in my free time. As I said in previous articles, I do play video games, but I also enjoy bike riding, surfing, climbing and pretty much anything else I can jump into and learn. Due to all these things being in my general agenda throughout the weeks and months, I'm in fairly good shape. I also have an extremely taxing job that causes me to be working out even at work. All this to say that I'm in pretty good shape and enjoy the way my body looks.
This article is not about me, though. This article is about all those people who feel as though their bodies are not in good shape and feel like no matter what they do, they will never reach that point in their lives where they have the perfect body. The society we live in is obsessed with outer image; whether it be telling people they shouldn’t worry about their bodies and be happy with who they are, or showing images of people whose bodies are fantastic in media. Our culture just feels the idea of image is so important that we should be spending time and money and placing political importance on the subject. Needless to say, I don't find it that important, but I do feel as though it's something that should be addressed on occasion to remind the coming generation that they're amazing.
I was recently talking to a friend of mine. She is from the youth group I helped out with in years past. She told me that she didn’t feel beautiful, even though to be honest, she's a gorgeous young woman. This made me think about the image that people put on themselves and I realized very quickly that we're our own worst enemies. It's not always that others make us feel as though we aren’t attractive, it's that we ourselves make us feel less attractive. Maybe you have too big a waist for your liking, or maybe you don’t have enough muscle in your opinion, but all of these things are just the way you view yourself.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that, no matter what, you should be happy with the way you look, because personally, I believe that if you feel like you want to be stronger or thinner, as long as you're healthy, you should work towards those goals. I will, however, say that the confidence you have in yourself is what makes you have the perfect body. A perfect body is a standard of measurement that can never be met except in your own mind. If you want to have the perfect body, stop making it seem like everything about you is wrong. To have the perfect body, you have to realize that there's nothing wrong with the body you have, and once you conquer your own fear of your body, you can begin shaping it to what you want it to be.
In my opinion, having the perfect body is more of a mental activity then a physical quality.
