It seems like self-confidence, and social media go hand-in-hand these days. We’re bombarded with people’s perfect lives, perfect smiles, perfect makeup, perfect bodies. It can become overwhelming–I know it did for me. Growing up, I never thought of myself as pretty; I just thought I was average-looking. I didn’t know my life was interesting enough because it paled in comparison to those that I saw on Instagram. But, then I realized that the people that I thought were so much better than I was, were selling heavily edited versions of themselves to us “regular people.”
This realization is probably one that most of us are more than aware of now, but back then, it was liberating to know that no one was perfect. It made me feel good to know that I wasn’t the only one in the world who wasn’t on 150 all the time. I think that sometimes we forget that the people we see online or on TV are just like us! They have doubts and insecurities just like we do. No one is perfect.
Last year, I started to perfect my makeup looks. I was so confident in how I looked with my makeup done that I didn’t want to go anywhere without it because I thought I wouldn’t look as good or that I wouldn’t get as much attention. One day, I ran out of the products that I use for my eyebrows, and I had to go to school bare-faced. I was so nervous about it! But when I got to school, all my friends said that I looked the same with and without makeup. They told me that I “looked good either way.”
I think that makeup was a way for me to gain confidence in how I look on the outside. My friends paved the way for me to gain confidence in how I feel about myself on the inside. I know I’m not perfect, and I never will be. But for the last year and some change, I’ve been working on becoming the best version of myself that I can be. I can honestly say that I love the way I look, I love my life, and I love my body, and that’s all that matters!
Once I started feeling better about myself in real life, it began to show in my online life. I don’t compare myself to Instagram models or celebrities anymore. And, my Instagram is fire, period. I don’t care what anybody else says, as long as I love me, I will ALWAYS be good.