The most beautiful thing you can be is happy. Image: Thinkstock.
I am here to congratulate all of the girls and women who wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and smile.
Recently, I was looking through some old pictures of myself, from when I was a newborn baby, to different times in my childhood, to selfies I had taken in the last few days. Like every other person on this earth, I have my insecurities. As I was looking at these photos, I found myself picking out my faults, finding things that I would like to change, putting myself down for looking a certain way or not looking a certain way.
I realized that I was doing the same thing that I do every time I look in a mirror, pose for a photo, or even walk into a room.
I mentally degrade myself for my appearance, the clothes or makeup I wear, just the way I am… the way I have grown. The parts of me that aren’t like others.
I know how damaging that can be to a person's self-esteem, because I am one of those people who preaches that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that everyone is so beautiful in their own way, and that people need to stop judging themselves and rating themselves on the way they were made.
But a little voice in the back of my head still likes to remind me of all of the things that make me ugly, all of the things that make me feel less pretty or beautiful or feminine. The things that people judge me because of and the things that I am told to be socially aware of.
And the more I think about it, the louder that voice gets and the harder it is to ignore.
Especially when you are the younger sister to a thin, extremely beautiful, platinum blonde who has pearly white teeth, hip bones that protrude, and a thigh gap like the grand canyon.
Now, I am not here to put down girls and women who are naturally thin, who attract attention for their looks, or who look like the models in the magazines, like my gorgeous sister. No, that is not what I am trying to get across. The message I want to convey is actually the opposite.
I learned that the most beautiful thing you can be is happy.
I am here to congratulate all of the girls and women who wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and smile.
I am here to say “BRAVO” to all of the girls and women who do not walk down the street but strut down the street like it is their runway.
I am here to let all of the girls and women know just how INCREDIBLE they look wearing that designer confidence by “themselves.”
I am here to remind all of them how important being them is. How important it is to ignore that voice inside of their head, no matter how loud it may shout or what nasty things it may say, and to live like they desire.
To wear whatever puts a smile on their face, to have their hair whatever way helps them to get up in the morning, and to keep their chin up as high as it can possibly go.
I know all of this is wayyyyyy easier said than done. Believe me, I know!
You know what has helped me conquer the voice of self-doubt more than anything? I started to look at all of the pretty people in my life. All of the people I look up to and admire and sometimes compare myself to. I looked at my grandparents; I looked at my parents, my aunts and uncles; I looked at my friends; I looked at my little cousin and I looked at my sister.
Do you know what I realized?
The reason all of these people are so amazingly beautiful and special and precious in my mind is not because they are 6-foot-tall supermodels who are all a size 0, with big boobs and platinum blonde hair.
It’s because they are just incredible people.
That’s it.
We were not put on this earth to sit still and look pretty.
They walk through life in the way that suits them, and their happiness and confidence streams out of them like sun rays from behind a storm cloud.
I learned from these people to stop looking down at the ground when I walk, to stop judging myself for the amount of likes my profile picture gets, and to start doing what I love.
I learned that the most beautiful thing you can be is happy.
We were not put on this earth to sit still and look pretty. Our parents did not decide to have children so they could be beautiful. We were born to live and to be happy and confident and to show the world all of the goodness that lives inside of us.
And if you happen to feel more confident and like yourself when you spend 3 hours applying makeup, then good for you!! You go and you wear makeup!
And if you find it easier to spread your happiness in a pair of combat boots and an oversized hoodie, then good for you! You go and you wear those combat boots and that oversized hoodie.
In the wise words of Selena Gomez, we need to stop trying to be “beauty queens” and start being “beautiful me.” Be-YOU-tiful.
The way you look is the only part of you that the world gets to physically see. The rest of you is like the hidden army inside of the Trojan horse. Beauty is only skin-deep, however: it is not in the tiniest way as important as that army that hides out inside of you. And from now on I’ll try to remember that.
“Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do.” — Rumi.
