“Mirror, mirror on the wall, why am I the ugliest of them all?”
Do you remember ever hearing this expression? Well, not the second part I suppose, but definitely the first.
What do people see when they look in the mirror? They see their look, and they think what they think, but almost always what they think is affected by what other people think.
And it’s wrong.
Today’s society is based on what we look like, on what we say, on what we do, but not on what we are.
And that’s also wrong.
There isn’t an answer to the question above simply because the question shouldn’t exist.
It’s wrong to judge a book by its cover just like it’s wrong to judge a person by what they look like. Everybody has a look, which shouldn’t be affected by what other’s opinion. Unfortunately that happens anyway, because everybody, especially teenagers, are desperate to fit in. But why fit in? Why not stand out? Because practically everybody is afraid to stand out and to not fit in. It’s perfectly understandable and very common, but it’s wrong. Being popular, being “cool”, having an identical look to everybody’s else’s means fitting in, today. But being a bit different, expressing who we are, liking what we like and not caring about other’s opinion, that’s original. Not standing out (which can also be a negative thing in some cases), but being original, a little less boring.
Going back to the mirror, when we look at ourselves we usually search for something that’s wrong, that shouldn’t be there, that others think we should change. But why change? Because we need to be accepted? Don’t they say that we should be accepted for who we are? And not for who other people make us become? Yes, we should, but that doesn’t always happen.
Personally I’ve been told sometimes that I’m a bit different, but in my head I have translated those comments in “You’re original, cool”, and that’s absolutely fine, because if we’re not happy with ourselves we’ll never be happy with anything. I’ve also been told, and not just me, that I’m ugly, indirectly of course.
It’s not a problem obviously because I don’t care what others think, but it hurts, it hurts anyway. I know that I’m not the “prettiest of them all” but I don’t like hearing it, nobody likes hearing their flaws shouted in their face… But anyway, Nobody should feel bad because of other’s comments or because they don’t think that they fit in. Being original is a great quality, what you look like isn’t what should be judged on (not that you should be judged, anyway) , and nobody should get depressed over some stupid comments.
Alessia Bello (1E)