From a very young age, we’re conditioned to try and be the best at everything. Whether that be the top of your class, looking the best, or even making it look like you have the coolest social life, we all- in some way or another- feel like we’re trying to get to the finish line first. So why is it that we look at life like a race that we must win first place or else? And once we win first place, what’s our prize? The satisfaction that everyone knows we’re in first place? Mediocrity is the norm, so why can’t we be satisfied with just that?
Perfection is an illusion. You’re never going to love every single thing about yourself- physically or mentally. We can preach all day long about how we must love ourselves, but why don’t we ever say that it’s okay not to love parts about ourselves? We’re changing every single day, our bodies as well. With that, our thoughts will evolve. Having insecurities can lead to growth if we let it. Once we accept we don’t like something about ourselves, we can work to slowly fix it if it’s something that truly needs to be fixed.
No one person has the same path as you do. Everyone has different circumstances and different cards they’ve been dealt. So why do we sit there and compare where someone else is in life compared to where we are in life? Maybe we see it as a benchmark for where we should be. Or maybe society expects us to be at a certain stage in life by a certain age. Consequently, we put even more pressure on ourselves to push harder in this race. Maybe that’s a good thing, everyone needs a little push here and there. But it certainly isn’t imperative to be so hard on ourselves when we decide to graduate a semester later, or decide to get married a few years after all our friends do.
And then, there’s the social race. We feel the need to make our lives look a certain way, in order to attract more people into it. We crave acceptance from society because the more people like us, the more validated we feel. It makes us feel like we’re a little bit closer to perfection, and a little further along in this so called race. The more followers we have on Instagram, the more accepted we feel. So we keep pushing for it.
Plot twist- as much as we chase perfection, there will always be someone who will have better physical features than us collectively. There will always be someone a little more fit and toned. There will always be someone more knowledgeable, and who has more answers to the questions we don’t know. There will always be someone with more followers and more friends in real life as well, and that's okay! Why can’t we just accept that it’s okay that we’re not the best at everything? It’s okay to be normal. Lets not pressurize ourselves to strive for perfection, because as cliché as it sounds, nobody’s perfect. Yes we’re human, so it’s very hard to have a mindset like this. But next time you start comparing your journey with someone else’s remember this:
“Comparison is the thief of joy” –Theodore Roosevelt
So trust the process, accept your flaws, and have full confidence that you’ll get there eventually.
-love Sof
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