You’re beautiful. You do know this, right?
I’d like to invite you to think about something. What does it mean to be truly beautiful?
We often lose ourselves in comparison to others. This is true, especially when it comes to beauty.
This is so when it comes to both social and personal comparisons.
Am I tall enough or strong enough? Am I fit enough, slim or trim enough? Am I too skinny (if there is such a thing) or am I too fat? Am I too slow, too fast, or do I say the wrong things all the time?
My best analogy of social fear and insecurity comes from my first day in 7th grade. I was in a new school that was much bigger than the previous one. I was in junior high, which, I believe most people call this middle school now.
I stood with my back to the double doors of the cafeteria. I saw crowds of people sitting at various tables. There were so many faces and so many different personalities.
There was the entire social and echelon of popularity here. There were the good looking and the athletes. There were the class clowns and the trouble-makers.
There were all different sides of the crowd in this room. From freaks to geeks, it was all here, like a governmental flow chart that dictates the different socially interactive levels of “Cool.”
On the right side were the athletes and the good kids. On the left side were the troublemakers and the tougher crowds.
Either side had status. Both sides had popularity; however, the middle of the cafeteria was a sea of faceless people.
Each kid had their own story but yet, most kids in the middle of the room were socially unknown. They are the names that no one remembered at 10 or 20 year reunions. There was no status here in the middle of the cafeteria. There was no popularity and no wild stories of crazy weekend parties. Instead, there was this faceless appeal, which I was petrified of. I was afraid to be faceless and unknown, or worse, unremarkable and unremembered.
We lose ourselves in comparisons of beauty and allow ourselves to be caught up on the commercialized assessment of what beauty is.
Moreover, I have seen in my own self the ugliness of times when I resorted to this idea that beauty looks, feels, and acts a certain way.
In times of anger, I admit to the low blow comments of pointing out the commercial flaws of what supposed beauty is. Yet, meanwhile, beauty is ever-forming and in no way limited by popular opinion.
Instead, words like fat or calling someone fat or a bitch is nothing more than a reflection of one’s own personal ugliness, which, at times, is something that we all possess. Therefore, I admit to my times of ugliness with apology.
As for beauty, beauty comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes. It would be an ugly thing to believe otherwise. In fact, we are most beautiful when we see ourselves as true and without regard or comparison to others.
I used to wish I looked differently. I wished I was taller. I wished I was more muscular. I wished that I looked different. I’ve always wanted to have abs. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have the body of what I thought would be a perfect physical specimen.
I used to believe that I was ugly. I believed the world was an ugly place, except for the beautiful people, of course, but then again, who are they? What does it mean to be beautiful?
I’m asking because deep down, I know that you would know. I know this because you are beautiful. In fact we all are. The problem is we are distracted by ugly thoughts sometimes, which cause us to say ugly things.
I don’t ever want to be ugly.
Do you?
I didn’t think so.
I think beauty comes from within. I think beauty comes from this thing we call inner peace because once we achieve this, nothing about us could ever be ugly; not the way we look, the way we act, or even the way we feel.
Know why?
Because we stopped comparing ourselves to others in the social atmospheres and instead, we looked within to realize the most true important thing, which is we are perfect, exactly the way we are.
That’s beautiful for you.
The Written Addiction 