Taunted by the glossy pages of magazine covers, the silky look of the vibrant television screen, the easy access we all have allows us to alter our imperfections. 

Our skin is a maze. It has bumps, discoloration, hair, wrinkles, and curves. Our skin is a maze of “I like this, but I don’t like that.” It makes us who we are, and yet, we criticize it like it’s our worst enemies. 

We have grown up on this idea of perfection, from the stick-thin blonde barbie dolls we played with as a child, to the princesses in our favorite movies. People will tell you “don’t worry, nobody is perfect,’’ and yet, they will still buy us magazines with models on the cover and let us watch animations of little girls that don’t have a single hair out of place. By doing these things, these seemingly normal things, we have unintentionally learned that perfection is possible, but we are just aren’t good enough to obtain it. 

That simple, yet toxic, thought is what for so many years, too many years, I built my beliefs around. I felt like I wasn’t good enough; I felt like that perfection was a concept reserved only for those on-screen or in papers. That, although perfection was possible, I just wasn’t able to get there because my handwriting wasn’t precise enough or my once baby smooth skin got little bumps and imperfections all over it. 

Then I realized everybody has problems. Maybe not in the magazines, but that’s because magazines are paper, not flesh. And the real human people, the ones I see in my everyday life, they all have imperfections just like me, and I loved them more for it. I didn’t judge them or base their self-worth off how they looked. I based it off of how they treated me. 

My skin, my body, my life is flawed. However, the flaws are what teach me how to be better. Not how to be perfect, just how to be better. Because perfection is unattainable, but improvement is always possible as long as you are willing to put in the work. 

So don’t strive for perfection, because by doing that you are setting yourself up for disappointment. But instead, strive towards being your best self, and soon, once you have kept this concept of being a good person in the back of your mind, the glossy pages of the magazine covers and the childhood barbie doll will start to fade into background noise. 

As the noise gets quieter and quieter, you will start to have time for the things that actually matter in life. Like knowing that someone, somewhere, cares about you and loves your imperfections. Each bump, curve, wrinkle, and misplaced hair that you used to hate, will soon seem so minor compared to every other aspect of what makes you, you.