No one will ever ask you to be perfect, but sometimes even if this isn’t expressed with words, it’s obvious in people’s reactions.
Society forces us to hide our flaws in order to be accepted by others.
Sometimes it’s about our behaviour, some other times it’s about appearance. Women are more common to get in the trap of trying to be perfect and mainly about their looks.
When you’re in a younger age, it’s more possible to be influenced by peer pressure, but it seems like this isn’t a phenomenon that disappears as we grow older.
People in their 30’s, 40’s or even older care about what others think about them and they try to comply with their demands.
I think it’s up to our character and our priorities how much we will allow ourselves to be vulnerable and give in to others’ expectations from us.
In my opinion, it’s only a minority that doesn’t take into consideration what is acceptable by others and live their lives without worrying they are not good enough for the people around them.
It’s like a kind of bullying when you are still in your childhood and your classmates make ridiculous comments about your size, your outfit, your family’s financial status, your parents’ job or education or a part of your body they find funny.
Personally, I’ve always been a fan of make up as it helps you feel prettier and feel more confident about myself, but I admire a woman who doesn’t need make up to feel important. Nevertheless, I can’t hide that I’ve said to myself a few times ‘Why doesn’t she wear make up? She could look more beautiful’.
But, believe it or not, I noticed in the past that I received different approach by others depending on me wearing make up or not. There were a few times that I went to the same public service and the times I had taken more care of my appearance, the employees were more eager to help me. And I don’t mean only men, the same thing happened with females as well.
I don’t know if the fact that I felt confident of my appearance gave me more self esteem and this was reflected on others.
What I can see around me and from the articles that are very popular on magazines and beauty blogs I understand that being slim is the main issue women and even men have to face.
I had spent my whole life until my middle 20’s being skinny, so I never had to deal with diets, but I can assure you that even having less weight can be a reason to get negative criticism.
Last year after having given birth again I saw for the first time what it is like to have extra weight.
The reason I had gained weight was not important to others, but many people hustled to give me advice on how to get fit again, comment on how much I had changed and I could see their disappointment on their eyes about how I had ‘abandoned’ myself.
What was my reaction towards them?
I can’t blame them that they wanted to make me feel bad for myself because the main reason they talked to me about my weight was that they wanted the best for me, but I don’t like the fact that somebody wants to make your problem their business if they are not really willing to help you.
So, what I did was to ignore them!
Deep inside me I knew that if it was something that really bothered me I would try to take care of it.
And if I need to be more specific on what I mean is that I wasn’t satisfied either that I couldn’t wear everything I liked, but at that moment I wasn’t ready to work out even if I had tried because it was physically difficult.
What hurts the most is when the ones closest to you are those who are being judgemental.
Instead of looking for the benefits of your actions, they will point out the negative effects.
For example, I had to justify myself for breastfeeding for a long time, instead of being praised for this fact.
Let’s go back to the childhood and explain how I got inspired to write these lines. A couple days ago I was wearing my hair in a bun and it reminded me of how I always had to listen to funny jokes when a relative saw my sticked out ears.
But I have never really felt the need to hide this feature of mine.
I have many photos where my ears are visible, I tell others about my ears even if they haven’t noticed them and I say that I have bionic ears which give me overhearing powers or I can even fly!
I am glad I wasn’t influenced by others and have a plastic surgery, which had crossed my mind when I was very young, or really take it too seriously. Of course, maybe that would be different if I had been the receiver of stronger disapprobation.
And I am a person who likes beauty in general, even when I see a film, a beautiful face can make what I’m watching more appealing.
But it should be our choice to decide to change something on us and not because of some social condemnation.
