Accepting the way you look

Many readers of this article are going to be teenagers who often stand in front of the mirror pondering about their looks, scroll Instagram watching the so called ‘thrilling lifestyle’ of their friends and watching their stories with them enjoying with their circle of friends, while ruing the fact that they have to miss out on all the fun because of parents’ restriction or lack of “fun-loving” friends.

If you are one of them then my dear friends, I advise you to free yourself from these tangles as I am very sure this adversely effects your mental health.

Teenagers are the future of any country. This phase is an unforgettable part of one’s life. One comes across many changes like mental and physical ones and especially emotional upheaval.

It is the most troubling part of this phase, even I am tired of myself being all moody and aggressive.

The only thing that affects teenagers the most during this phase are their looks. It is the way you look that often makes you feel ashamed, but there is nothing as such to be ashamed about. It is just that the unrealistic beauty standards of society affect us. Teenagers suffering from complex sbout their looks often feel left out and this particular feeling casts its dark shadow on the golden period of one’s life where most of the life-changing decisions are made.

It is difficult to pay attention to your studies and as a consequence poor academic performance mars one’s chances in life.

On top of it are the high expectations of parents that make the matters worse for teens. I understand how one feels when one is not able to meet their expectations get scolded.

But all this can really be changed only if one starts accepting the way one looks and be actually proud of one’s looks because that is the best gift that God gave us all.

It makes me realise that I am very close to God, the only divine gift that I can see all the time and feel the presence of the Almighty.

It is when you start realising that you look beautiful the way you are and that the true beauty lies within your heart and your actions that everything will start falling in place and life would be back normal.

I believe that each one of us is capable of facing any difficulty and meet any expectations, but that’s only possible when we start accepting ourselves and just focus on a goal.

I know many of you may be thinking at this moment that it’s pretty easy to speak than to really implement it. Yes! It surely is difficult to adapt to a change, but it’s certainly not impossible.

Idhika Gupta, Class X, Sacred Heart Senior Sec School, Sidhpur, Dharamsala