“I’m tired of looking around rooms wondering who I am supposed to be
I don’t wanna be anything other than me”
~ Gavin Degraw ( One Tree Hill ).
It’s difficult to live in a world where you are labeled from the very second you are born. We are labeled based on our caste, our color, our size, our looks, our surname, our financial background, and before we realize, we stop looking beyond these labels. We look at ourselves as these labels. Not good enough, not smart enough, loner, dark, fat, just another bodybuilder guy, just looks nothing beyond. But we never try to step out of them. Why do we always look at looks over personality? Why can’t we see beyond someone’s colors or their sizes? Why is a guy with feminine behavior called ‘gay’ or ‘chikna‘?
Are these labels consuming us?
This quarantine was pretty difficult for many of us. With parlors and salons being shut down for months, a lot of us started feeling uglier with each passing day. The labels we grew up amidst started becoming more real. Many of us felt less pretty or presentable. This feeling worsened when all our friends took up several online courses and internships. Feeling lost, not as capable as them, and spending nights in self-doubt while staring at the fan became an everyday story. The feeling of not being as productive as others perplexed in ways more than one. So, we had two problems at hand – the struggle to come to terms with our flaws and the struggle to not fall out of the rat race.
Let’s talk about each problem one at a time.
Ever since the lockdown began, Hustle Culture picked up its pace. The Economy was frozen but the people never stopped hustling. Hustle culture quite literally means constant working. It means committing as much of your day as possible to working. There is no timeout at work. Work is done within the office, outside the office, at home, at coffee shops anywhere and everywhere. It’s a mindset and a life embraced by many, both by individuals and companies. When you talk of hustle culture, the more you work, the more celebrated you are. Never mind that you miss meals, sleep, and other important events. In hustle culture, taking a break is for the weak. Your brain becomes trained to always be active and always churning out idea after idea after idea.
When all your peers were hustling, and you were probably binge-watching shows on Netflix, trying new recipes, baking cakes every third day, reading books, and SLEEPING! (we were too, don’t worry!) In fact, the guilt trip stayed for days together. But think about it this way – you are never going to get a break like this ever again! It’s okay to take some time off for yourself before getting caught up in the hustle race where the finish lines are nothing but a blur. It’s okay to take a day, a week, or even more off if you need it. Pause. Relax. Breathe.
Now turning to the second problem – quarantine put our flaws under the spotlight.
You would have spent hours in front of your mirror, staring at your face and counting flaws. Marks, scabs, eyebrows growing out everywhere, and dark circles covering most of your face. You didn’t feel pretty, given the number of home-made remedies you tried. But it’s time you start realizing it’s okay. Society creates this false narrative about ‘beauty’ and defines it in a way that most of us don’t fit within the ‘standard set’.
But honestly, this quarantine made us realize that it is okay, to be you for a while, to not pluck out every inch of hair on your skin, to not try and cover every spot and mark on your face. Maybe you can try to connect the dots and find constellations amidst these marks. Because it’s okay to be you. Without concealing, without a filter. Just you.
Beautiful things have dents and scratch too. During these quarantine days, none of us is dotting our ‘best versions’. Because let’s face it, dark circles, unkempt beard, and eyebrows, and pimples and whatnot. But that doesn’t make us any less beautiful, it’s okay to be the most natural version of yourself sometimes. The key to falling in love with yourself is to stop comparing yourself with others.
So, we hope today when you look at the mirror, you don’t have to ask yourself ‘Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the prettiest of them all?’
We hope today, your insecurities don’t find you.
We hope today, you notice your toothy smile, your little crooked, cute nose, your droopy eyes, and find them comforting. After all, it’s you. And after all, these small imperfections that make you be so hard on yourself, are what make you a wildflower in a garden full of roses. We hope today you realize that the mirror in front of you isn’t the Evil Queen’s magic mirror, rather it is just an inanimate object which is incapable of containing the masterpiece that you are.