07:00 am. The alarm goes off and after a lot of effort you decide it’s time to get up and drag yourself all the way to the bathroom in order to get ready for the tiring day ahead of you. So, as you’re standing in front of the mirror, you start observing yourself a bit more closely. Your big nose, the hair on your hands and your dark circles under your eyes. You keep going with this nefarious cycle of thoughts and mental amendments for the perpetual imperfections you trace. And all of this for what? Well, of course because everyone and everything around you does not fail to remind you that you are never good enough and that you should never rest because there is always something more than can be fixed.
Nowadays, due to the strong presence of social media and the constant exposure to an audience, the interest from our inner world has shifted to our outside world. A flawless face and an ideal body have acquired the greatest value and must receive most of our attention. From the moment we open our eyes with the first light of the day until the moment we close them again at bedtime, we are “bombarded” with stimuli that promote an aesthetically pleasing perfection. Inevitably so, we put ourselves under a process of comparison. Society itself pushes us more and more to stand in front of a mirror every day and like the evil stepmother from the well-known fairytale that pushes us to constantly ask: Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
Simply by scrolling down on social media, we have certainly encountered people that have tried to convince us that small changes and purchasing products can completely transform us. Everything seems to be a continual competition to get to the top, to be the most “perfect” human being with the least flaws. Everything starts from a simple cream for dark circles and before we even realize what has happened we have moved on to radical changes on ourselves, perhaps even based on strong emotional charge and impulsive decisions.
In our effort to accomplish what is perceived as desirable, what we often ignore is that these changes do not only affect our outer world. Our imperfections, just like the rigid points of our personality, complete this unique whole that makes us ourselves. We wouldn’t be the same people if all these characteristics were different. We would get a whole other identity, we would be living a whole different life. Nobody is the same as everyone else, every characteristic makes us unique and this is the reason why we live in such a different society. Trying to achieve perfection -and consequently uniformity- we lack a nuance in an extremely colorful society, which then tends towards monochrome.
So, next time you catch yourself recording all your imperfections, don’t list them as your flaws. On the contrary, you should be thankful for all those pieces that form your “puzzle”. You should appreciate your uniqueness in all its aspects. Accept all those things that make you who you are and distinguish you from the others and turn them into your greatest benefits. Into your perfection.
