Let’s be honest. This is one of the most commonly asked questions in the entire history of humankind. And, spoiler alert, I don’t have the magical answer at the end of this post. What I do have is probably something close to a rant (emphasis on the close to).
21st century is probably the most technologically advanced one yet, however, we find majority of the netizens always on the lookout for their knight in shining whatever or their, wait what’s the women’s equivalent of this phrase? (Do google. 🙂I was in for a fun surprise.) But alas, not many of us get to the phase where the so anxiously awaited happily-ever-after begins. Why do we constantly find ourselves trying to find something in this respect? and fail oh, so spectacularly!? I used to watch this cartoon where a man goes in search of water in a desert and comes across a mirage. Parallelism anyone?
I recently caught myself asking this very question. What makes me worthy of love? But then I realized, who’s love? And honestly, that was probably the trigger for this post (thanks if you’re with me so far). This question brought up a lot of personal instances to mind. As I sat there, analysing all the trauma like a data scientist trying to make sense of the millions of instances of data trying to find a pattern, I realized all I wanted in return was validation. Someone to tell me I am doing a good job. Someone to tell me I deserve every laurel I ever got. Or someone to just tell me it will all eventually be okay.
We all try so hard to be good friends, good sisters or good *insert any generic relationship here*. But then, why don’t we ever try to be what we need? Why do we always look for an external locus to do these things? (Don’t open that box, Pandora!)
On a serious note, I essentially came to the conclusion that, in this generation of perfect people posting about their perfect lives on their perfect instagram pages(with loads of filters or editing most of the times), we are so hard on ourselves about our flaws and our imperfections. I’d like to mention one aspect of my recent obsession for Japanese culture – a concept of wabi sabi – which wiki so elegantly defines as “a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection”.
Then I wondered, what do I do? I think the world would be a better place if we all are as accepting about ourselves as we are of other people and embrace the imperfections. We wouldn’t be who we are without going through the things we went through. Get rid of the world’s perception on perfect! Reach out to a friend or someone who’s opinions you genuinely trust and just talk it out. The world would be an amazing place with you smiling now, would it not? Common, flash those whites! Say cheeeeese?
tanned.conscience 