Diamond in the Rough

When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? Do you love the person staring back at you? For the most part, the only thing staring back at you, are your flaws, the scars on your body you wish you never had to look at. You gaze at your reflection and ask yourself “who on earth will love me, if I can’t even love me?”. You say to yourself that you'd be more beautiful if you were skinnier, more curvaceous, taller, smaller, more tanned, more pale, had cheekbones, had no cheekbones. You convince yourself that what you are is not good enough, your reflection is gazing back at you, longing to be loved, longing to be appreciated. You ask yourself “why can’t I be beautiful, why can’t I love what I see?”

Insecurity affects us all at some point in our lives. Whether it be a small thing that you can hardly notice, or something huge that you fixate on constantly, there will be imperfections that you find so difficult to admire. You feel this constant anxiety of fearing that other people will see you for what your flaws are as opposed to what your heart and soul bare. You worry people wont look past those stretch marks, or those scars you have from when you used to self harm. You begin to resent the world for creating someone who is entirely unloveable, entirely ugly, completely and utterly disgusting. We all have insecurities, we all have parts of our bodies we wish we could change, or wish we were born without. But why do we resent ourselves so much for something we cannot change? Rather than hating the body you live in, why don't you admire it?

Personally, I’ve not felt insecure in who I am, in a way, I’ve been lucky enough to love myself the way I expect to be loved, but that doesn't go to say I don't bare insecurities of my own, because  I do, we all do, and you'll find that the flaw itself isn't the problem, it’s the fixation of them that is the problem, it is the way we see them that affects us. Throughout secondary school it was hard being who I was, because I felt as though I wasn't quite how I should have been. I felt as though my voice was too high pitched and I was too short. My height was my biggest insecurity growing up. Being a boy in this society, you're expected to look a certain way. You’re expected to be this masculine, tall type of boy, who plays multiple sports, gets straight A’s and gets all the girls. But this just wasn't the case for me, I was quite the opposite, I was more in touch with my feminine side, I would rather cook than play sports, I would rather befriend girls than boys, I would rather go shopping than watch the footy. In fact, a lot of people don’t fit into these societal expectations that we have been accustomed to over time and our insecurities exists because we don't live up to this “image” that is expected of us. 

Society creates this image of what it should be like to be the ideal person with the ideal life. It creates this perfectly flawless image which stereotypes genders; women are expected to be curvy yet slim, picture perfect yet shy, hot yet cute. Men are expected to be masculine yet soft, kind-hearted yet dominant, sporty yet smart. The point is, society is full of contradictory, hypocritical stereotypes that are expected of people. It expects people to behave in a certain way, to look a certain way, just to be accepted in this fake world. Society sets out the impression that if you don't look or act the way it expects, then you're not good enough. Truth is, people get so caught up in these stereotypes, so caught up in trying to live up to this perfect image, that they begin to resent themselves because they look nothing like how society expects them to. The world we live in is harsh, and people are battling with their own minds on a daily basis. People are force feeding themselves to not look so ‘anorexic’, they're starving themselves to not look so ‘fat’, they're getting too many lip fillers to look ‘pretty’ and editing every picture to avoid looking ‘ugly’. People are altering their images to live up to something that doesn't exist, they're changing their natural beauty to look like someone who doesn't exist. The  beauty in which you possess, isn't necessarily what people can physically see, the beauty is who you are, it’s your flaws, it’s everything that makes you stand out from this expectation of what ‘perfect’ really looks like. 

You cannot get your beauty from make-up, from fillers, from editing apps. Beauty exists within yourself, to find it, you have to start loving yourself. You need to look in the mirror, you need to stare at the person glancing back at you and love what you see. Yes, you can notice the stretch marks, but why wait for someone else to come along and love them? Beat them to it, and start loving them for yourself. Look at your flaws, point out your flaws, embrace your flaws. I know it can hurt to look in the mirror sometimes, I know it can seem impossible to love the person staring back at you in the mirror, but this person needs to be loved. This person needs to be accepted and appreciated, because those stretch marks, that acne, that scar, those jiggly bits under your arms, are all of the things that separate you from everybody else. Those are the things that make you different, they make you, YOU. 

We’re in a society where a perfect picture is painted, and we’re all brainwashed into thinking we have to recreate this picture in some way. When in reality, this picture doesn't exist, this picture has never existed, it never will exist, because the more you try to hide who you are, the more lip fillers you have to make yourself look ‘beautiful’, the more you hide your flaws, the further you are from your natural beauty, the further you are from being loved the way you longed to be loved. Put down the injection, delete that editing app, stop sucking in your belly, stop concealing your scars. Show the world your beauty, show the world everything that separates you from this stereotype, show the world how unique you are, show the world that you're not afraid to live your life in the body you were born with. Take a look in the mirror, what do you see? Start loving yourself the way you want to be loved, do not let the insecurity get the better of you, do not let society convince you that those stretch marks aren't beautiful, because they are. YOU are beautiful. Stop trying to shy away from this natural beauty. YOU are a diamond in the rough, embrace every part of it. Give yourself a reason to look in the mirror and adore the person that stares back at you, because she/he/they are beautiful and they deserve to be loved more than anything in the world. It’s time we throw away societies expectations of beauty, and start creating our own. 

Thank you to those who took part in sending me the pictures below, they make this piece even more beautiful and REAL.