July 2024. Piles and mountains of clothes surround me; I still have hours to go to finish packing this suitcase. I’m going on a two-week trip with my family, and I’m about to visit all these amazing places. Yet somehow, at this moment, I am more stressed than excited.
To paint the picture better, I dug under my bed for boxes containing all my winter stuff: sweaters, jackets, once-trendy scarves—the works. I’m assembling outfits on my kitchen counter, I’ve already scoured Pinterest, and I am so overwhelmed. Yes, I’ve thought about my Instagram pictures and the TikToks. And if I’m being honest, I’ve already compared my daily looks to my sisters’.
Here’s my biggest problem: I don’t feel cool. I didn’t order the Scandinavian pajama pants everyone’s now wearing, and my new $12 Amazon boxer shorts fit weirdly at the waist. Also, why don’t any of my outfits seem relevant? I feel like being a “cool girl” with all the cool outfits and pictures is all about being relevant. This feels so dumb.
I’ve been chasing that feeling my entire life. But something feels so off about it. Not only is it embarrassing to admit, but it’s just so hard to keep up. Why am I more stressed about how I’m going to look on this trip than about the trip itself? What exactly am I chasing? Praise? Likes? Not really.
The more I ponder this phenomenon, the more I realize how unrealistic it is to keep up with all the trends. And though many people are catching on and participating in discussions about this, I still find myself in this situation so often. I’m about to go on an amazing trip with my family, yet packing has been incredibly stressful—not just for me, but for all the women in my family. My dad didn’t have that hard of a time.
Here’s the deal. With social media at the palm of my hand, I can see what’s happening where I’m going. I have the immediate and uninterrupted power to look up “Amsterdam” and can instantly see what people are wearing, how they look, and what they’re doing. And the reality is that, as a human, it’s so hard not to want to be part of it… in a way that feels successful.
That’s the only honest way I can put it. It’s so hard not to want to be part of it. I’m so stressed about my outfits, I’m trying to plan all of it, and there’s this weird pressure in my head where I feel like I need this specific skirt to create this specific type of outfit that will make me look like this specific type of girl. A girl that, in my head, I have classified as cool, relevant, and “fashionable.” It’s exhausting. All the clothes that I have, I bought. I chose them, tried them on, or went online and searched and got excited. I opened the packages and went to the store and decided “This is cute, I like it.” Yet, somehow, it always feels like it wasn’t enough, like I’ll never look like a Pinterest Girlie or whatever the current aesthetic is.
I know I’ll take pictures and videos and look in the specific way that I want to be portrayed as. But in all of this, where does my true self come through? Why exactly don’t my clothes feel like they’re enough? And enough to whom? Based on conversations I’ve had with many other women from different age groups, I don’t seem to be alone on this one. Why is it that we put so much pressure on ourselves to, honestly, all look the same at the end of the day?
I tend to fall into this trap. And then occasionally I’ll see someone who doesn’t. It’s funny because those are always the people who end up being the ones I think look cool, and with substance. It’s always these people who naturally end up looking good, feeling good too, comfortable, and natural. And you can tell that they do. Why? Because their personality is actually shining through, and they are actually wearing and styling the things they chose. But even recognizing this, and wanting to be that kind of person, it’s still hard. I’ve seen it and I want it, yet I’m still here struggling to pack, stressing that I won’t look good in my own clothes that are mine and that I chose. It’s a vicious pondering circle.
I’ve never openly talked about this, but sometimes, before going somewhere, I get this image in my head. I’ll envision my outfit and, consciously or not, turn it into a competition. I feel like I don’t look as cool as the people around me—or cool at all—based on the collective standard of what’s trendy and fashionable. I end up putting so much focus on that competition. It’s confusing, and it’s something I’ve struggled with my entire life, constantly comparing myself to others. It’s reached the point where I’ve struggled to understand my own identity—what I like, and what I truly feel good and comfortable in. I’m trying to figure out what makes me happy, so this mindset feels so unfair to myself, not to mention unnatural. And yet, that’s where it gets confusing, as I understand that this is a survival instinct coming forward. Survival of the fittest. Literally.
I know that the world is so much bigger than this and me, but the pressure can still feel so big and heavy. It messes with my head and makes me question my body, who I am, and how people perceive me. It’s so easy to get carried away and think about this all the time. I wonder how much time I’m wasting worrying about something that’s so unfair for someone who just wants to feel good and happy.
And by the way, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look good. Everybody wants to look good because it makes us feel good. That’s just the type of creatures we are. According to this article, “the science behind ‘look good, feel good’ is a complex combination of psychology, neuroscience, and aesthetics. When we look good, we tend to feel good, and this can have a significant impact on our emotional well-being and overall quality of life.” So we aren’t totally off or wrong for wanting to feel good about how we present ourselves to the world that we are a part of.
I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion that I deserve to feel good and confident. But that’s the thing. I should be feeling good as the base of it. I shouldn’t be sacrificing my emotional well-being or stability line just to think and feel like I look good to other people. That defeats the whole purpose. Look good, feel good. If I feel good, I believe I’m all set. That will most likely translate in the way that I’m probably chasing deep down. Otherwise, chances are I probably don’t look good either. And if I’m going by my insecurity’s logic, I might as well also accept that people can tell when one doesn’t feel good.
I was 16 when I was told that being “good-looking” in general was all about confidence. And although I’ve found that to be very true, I also, with a teenage malleable brain, managed to switch it around. I kind of tricked myself into acting confident and “feeling good” so that other people wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t confident. In my head, that was the simple fix that would make me look good. Isn’t that silly?
It all boils down to the fact that I should be choosing what makes my actual self happy. What I enjoy. So next time I pick an outfit, I would have picked it for a reason. It’ll just be a different one.