The Ugly Duckling
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Growing up in a house where I could always relate to the “Ugly Duckling” story, isn’t that fun? Ever since I was born, I have been raised to think that intelligence, manners, elegance, and beauty are what makes a person successful in life.
My mother always said that if one of these characteristics weren’t there, then you’d fail as a person. For a long period of time, I struggled to maintain all of these characteristics, and somehow I managed to succeed. However a couple of years back, I managed to gain a lot of weight because my lifestyle changed, which automatically changed the way I look and dress. My parents were really unsatisfied, specially my mother.
My mother, ever since she was young, was into beauty pageants. She won many of them; and when she got married, she had my sister and me. She wanted to continue her dreams through us. Unfortunately, I am nothing like what she wanted her girl to be. My sister, on the other hand, was everything she’d ever dreamt of. She had the perfect body, features, manners, intelligence, and sense of fashion.
My sister, throughout the years, won many beauty pageants, which made my mom so happy. And you’d think she’d be satisfied. However that wasn’t the case. She was breathing down my neck every day commenting on how I dressed and how my lifestyle doesn’t fit in the frame of their image. Every week, there had to be an intervention about how I should change the way I look.
For many years I’ve tried to avoid their comments, but at the end of the day, sometimes it hurts to know that the people who are supposed to love you no matter what, are the people who always push you to be someone else. Their constant nagging made me feel insecure about how I looked. To satisfy them, I tried going on several diets but that never worked because it wasn’t something that I wanted.
The past year, they finally gave up, and lived with it.
One day, one quote changed my life forever: “Become who you are” – Nietzsche.
That’s when I sat with myself and asked myself what I wanted and how I wanted to look like. So I took on a very important decision, which changed my life. The passion that I had to look better was for my own satisfaction and not theirs. Now I feel better than ever and stronger than ever. What I’m trying to say is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What’s important is how YOU see yourself and who YOU think you are!
Contributed by Silent Chaos
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