21 years. That’s such a small time to make assumptions about life. Such a small time to say you’ve learnt everything. Because frankly, every year I feel I’m better than the previous year. Every year I laugh at the previous year me, and I’m sure, my future self will be laughing at the current me too. But, twenty one years is a long time to learn stuff too. To experience. It comes after the innocence of childhood, turbulence of teenage and with the hesitant excitement of a young adult. You are past the 17 year old’s foolish I-know-it-all phase and braced for the blows that world gonna give you in return for knowledge. But this post is not about being 21 because I’m just five months into it and have a whole lot more to experience. It’s about something else.
In my 21 years of life I have had more downs than ups. More troughs than crests. As much as I’ve cursed it, that much I’ve been thankful for it later. Because happiness only elates, it’s the sorrow that moulds.And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt the most after it all, it’s this –
“Love Yourself”
When I say love yourself, it doesn’t mean loving the physical you. It means the whole you. The curves in your body, the curves in your thoughts. The flaws. The failures. The fallacies that you try to hide behind a mask of perfection. Give up the pretence. Nobody is perfect. Not even the ones who seems so perfect that you stalk their profile and pity yourself; they just hide it better. Love your insecurities; love them till they go away. Love your infinite energy to look for the good in the bad, that’s how you found your strengths. Love your smile and smile, in the face of tragedy. Love your soul – the white and the blacks.
Love that tear-drop that you shed at being hurt. You’re not weak, you’re just sensitive, and it got too much to handle. Love that tumbling of thoughts in your head, one by one, not letting you sleep at night. Because they’re trying to say you how much hurt you’ve kept inside and maybe just maybe one day you’ll have the strength to make it al-right. Love that face in the mirror, the one that you hate so much. It’s not pretty, it’s you. And you; you don’t need someone’s validification with a word like ‘pretty’, ‘beautiful’, ‘handsome’, ‘sexy’. . .and even if you want – Open your lips. Say it to yourself. And someday you’ll believe it just enough to not cower in front the one you love thinking you’re not good enough for them. Love those trips to the mall. Love that trial room. As you try one after the other feeling dejected because it’s too small or too big, walk away with a face held high to another store. Clothes don’t define you, they just cater to someone’s idea of superficialities and another’s idea of making money by selling them. Love those failures, those bad grades, the exams you didn’t qualify. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam wanted to become a pilot and didn’t qualify it and look what he became. Maybe failures are a way of life telling us, “You’re crying over this but you don’t know what I’ve planned for you ahead. Get up and start working, stupid.” There are failures in everyone’s life, maybe you had too soon. Just because you failed at one doesn’t mean you’ll fail at life. There are good times ahead. Work for it. Love your body. The skinny will write vengeful posts about why everyone says it’s okay to be fat. The fat ones will sit on their laptops all day googling pictures of skinny models. I say give up the debate. Work for the body you want, and till you get it, love what you have. Don’t dream of what you can be when you’re chomping on a bag of chips or complaining how skinny you are while judging fat people in the head. No one’s innocent. Love those bad days that come too sudden, too unexpected and too much to get through it unscarred; because when it’s over you’ll be stronger and the little scared girl of today in the future will wonder when someone comes and says to her,” How are you so calm? How can you be so strong? I want to be you.” And that’s when you’ll realize how far you’ve gone.
So, don’t waste time and start loving yourself.
Cheers,
Parnini 🙂
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