dear person.

it is not a contest.
it is not a contest of life to be the most successful.
it is not a contest amongst friends to be most liked.
it is not a contest of mind to be most fit.
it is not a contest of intelligence to be most read.
it is not a contest of endurance to be most useful.
it is not a contest of anything except a contest with yourself

today, i will become smarter then yesterday.
and tomorrow i will something i am not today.

but to throw your life into a contest of besting other people is not only a sign of insecurity, it is preventing you from reaching your potential.

one should not compare to others but to self.
one should want to improve from within.
if i become better then someone else, should i stop and admire myself?
if i become better then myself yesterday, i know my journey will never end.

I think we are too caught up in beauty.

I am sick of those dove commericals about girls being under pressure to look beautiful.
The whole "I promise to think of myself as a beautiful person" crap.
HONESTLY?!?!?!?!? what about I promise to think of myself as a SMART person. What about I promise to try my best to become a SUCCESSFUL person. what about I promise to try my best to be a GENEROUS person. or a HAPPY person. or a CARING person or a FORGIVING person.

The idea that being beautiful and that automatically creates a good self image is preposterous.  Beauty is harding the defining factor. And if it is, it hardly lasts very long.  Don't get me wrong, I am a strong believer of inner beauty but unfortunately I don't believe focusing on beauty in any form makes you a beautiful person.

for example. If I am nice because I want to seem nice to you. Because I have something to gain from it. Am I really nice or am I just an asshole?  On the other hand if I am nice because I want only to be nice. Am I nicer or more beautiful for it? or is it really the same? Personally I cannot answer those questions. I only know there is something seriously wrong if my daughter's only goal is to think of herself as beautiful.

Can you smell DIVA much?

We create this self importance / self accomplishment thing around our whole lives.  It begins with wanting ourselves to be better, wanting our kids to be better. Every parent wants their kids to be smart, straight A, athletic, beautiful, etc. but do we really need to be all of the above?  We assume that if we ourselves have a good self image then confidence, respect and maybe success will just come naturally. But honestly does it really??

Do we pin our self image too much on beauty? Can we not be happy with our intelligence? with our skills? with our grace to be satisfied? Or will we HAVE to be aesthetically pleasing to be the whole package?

And slowly we create this world where we convince ourselves that we are beautiful.  And anyone who disagrees with us are our enemy.  Those enemies victimise us.  Those enemies abuse us verbally, they abuse us emotionally.  And as we overcome those abuse we become more beautiful because we overcome obstacles in our lives.

But honestly.  If you weren't so engrossed about your image in the first place what do they have to victimise you with? You create your own downfall in allowing your image to be a weapon held against yourselves.

And then it goes back to defining your self image on something OUTSIDE OF beauty.  If I based my self image and self love entirely on my ability to decifer riddles. Then no amount of abuse can rock me from my image due to my ability to support my self image WITH FACT.  I can solve riddles and I can prove it. But can I prove I am beautiful?

To base your self image on such a fickle lover as beauty, you only set yourself up for MAJOR FAILURE.  I can almost say it is your own fault for becoming a victim, and honestly, you abuse yourself.