Today, I have found that college girls are often too hard on themselves; we are our own worst critics. We set such high standards for ourselves, we often lose sight of our own beauty because we perceive others as greater. There is a societal expectation that women must always maintain our physical appearance to the highest standard of perfection. We must be pleasant and lively company, and we must be fabulous students. These enormous expectations on how we should conduct ourselves can negatively affect our identity.
This phenomenon of seeking perfection is something that I am all too familiar with. I have always been someone who has dealt with issues of insecurity and this stemmed from my perfectionist mentality. If I don’t receive the grade I want on an assignment, I blame myself for not being as smart as someone else, or that I could have tried harder even if I gave it my all. If I do not exercise for one day and decide to pick up Chick-fil-A, when I know I “shouldn’t,” I see my body image in a distorted way. I get in my head about what I see as flaws with my body and wish I could change how I looked. I tend to overthink everything to the point where I blame myself for being sensitive and having feelings.
Why must I be so hard on myself you might ask? Honestly, I ponder this every day. I am only 19-years-old, trying to figure out what I want in order to have a fulfilling life. It is impossible for me to be perfect, and it’s impossible for me to know everything right now. Why must I do this to myself? Due to the high-pressure climate our society and academia offer, it’s almost inevitable to not feel this way. How can I love myself fully if these systems are constantly telling me that I must try harder to reach their standards of excellence? There is an expectation that I must try harder to achieve others perception of beauty, be less emotional, and be friendlier. In terms of academics, I must pick a profitable major and receive all A’s if I want to be “successful.” These constant pressures to be a certain way can have a negative effect on one’s mental health; especially for young college women who have to cope with all of the outside factor’s womanhood entails, along with being a student at a prestigious university.
Going forward, I am going to change. I have decided that I am enough. I am flawed, yet I am beautiful. I am sensitive, yet I am resilient. I am a perfectionist, yet I am level headed. At the end of the day, all we have is ourselves as we will never be anybody else. We are constantly shifting, evolving, changing and becoming who we are truly meant to be. If we are too hard on ourselves, and if we focus too much on the negative, then we might miss the wonderful possibilities that happiness has to offer us. Yes, it is okay to recognize our flaws and have problems with ourselves, but these features do not define us. Some things are just out of our control and that is okay. My advice to college girls is to love yourself, do things that make you feel alive, talk to people who make you smile and to take the process one day at a time. We must love ourselves for all that we are and embrace ourselves for all that we are not.