Why You Don’t Need To Be Who Society Says You Should Be

Let’s talk about (im)perfection.

imperfection /ɪmpəˈfɛkʃ(ə)n/ noun: a fault, blemish, or undesirable feature.

What does ‘an undesirable feature’ mean to you? Maybe it’s a physical feature you have or a fault that you think others see. If you had asked me this a few years ago, I would have been able to list out a bunch of different things I considered undesirable.

But who decided on what imperfect was? How did we decide what was seen as a fault or a blemish and what was seen as beautiful?

In today’s society, we are bombarded with the ideal figure, the ideal beauty, and the ideal person. It’s everywhere — on TV, billboards, adverts, magazines, Instagram and anything else you tend to look at on a daily basis.

It’s no wonder, then, that according to the Dove Global Girls Beauty and Confidence report, almost two-thirds of girls aged 10 to 17 have low self-esteem, with 9 out of 10 girls saying they wouldn’t spend time with friends or take part in activities outside if they weren’t happy with the way they looked.

That is a sad statistic, but it’s a very real and prominent one right now.

And it doesn’t even have to be about physical appearance; there is an ideal for everything, apparently.

Didn’t get the job you wanted by the age of 30? You’re falling behind the rest of them.

You only have two or three friends? There must be a reason for that.

Don’t have a big social media presence? You obviously don’t have a lot to show.

But none of that matters. What matters is how happy you are and how you define your own success — not anyone else’s.

I used to always compare myself with others in real life and in the media. It’s so easy to become consumed with the idea of perfection, especially when it’s shoved in our faces.

When I have a child, I‘m scared of bringing them up in this world. I don’t want them to feel imperfect or unworthy. I want them to feel empowered, to feel beautiful inside and out, and to feel successful no matter what they do with their life.

And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? To be happy — whatever ‘happy’ may be for each of us.

The media is always going to be there and we are always going to see the fake perfection we should supposedly strive for. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we make ourselves happy and live a life with purpose.

This purpose is what keeps us going, not an unrealistic goal of being perfect.

No one’s perfect and that’s what makes the world beautiful.