In our society, insecurity and dissatisfaction with our own body comes from the media, along with which comes the overwhelming emphasis on physical attraction as the driving criteria of self-worth. Now, I’ve written about this before. But as you will have read and noticed by the theme of this blog, I am daily having new revelations about my approach to different societal ideals, and in the past few days I’ve come to a stronger conclusion:

I am proud of myself for being relatively satisfied with my body; although it is not picture perfect, I’ve got no regrets or worries about what I look like, because I have no control over a great portion of my appearance.

Appreciation for your body comes from (in my opinion) two approaches, both of which must be utilized to cover all bases. This isn’t a flowery lie; this is merely the humble truth.

First, you have to prove to yourself that the concept of fat is not only arbitrary, but also completely inappropriate in the context of today’s society. It does not and should not exist; it is entirely illusory.

Once you realize this and understand that there is something called a ‘personality’ that truly makes you who you are, you can go about improving yourself with a healthy mindset. Of course, all of this talk of self-acceptance certainly does not preclude the idea of progress; it only alters the reasoning behind the desire to change.

 

The concept of fat is currently placed in control by your peers, not yourself. No matter what your appearance, there will always be people that you will encounter that will expression their dissatisfaction with your outer appearance.

There will certainly also be representatives of the other side, namely, your friends and family. These social revolutionaries in your own world will say words; these words will be an attempt to convince you that you are fine the way that you are. But this doesn’t matter.

If you don’t truly believe inside what they say to you, the words won’t make a difference; they will go in one ear and out the other. Realizing that random bozos will always find something wrong with your appearance eliminates the arbitrary nature of body image.

In this new mindset, the concept of beautiful does not exist, because diversity is good. There’s no secret formula with variables for hair color, weight, height or ethnicity, because everyone is attracted both romantically and platonically to all sorts of people.

 

The idea of self-worth is placed primarily on physical appearance. Now, I’ve written about this; my post essentially can be summed up by explaining that personality and attractiveness do not always go together. Since first impressions are visual, we should take the time to appropriately dig deeper into a person, breaking through their materialist outer shell into the soft membrane that is their personality. Do this before you form a premature conclusion about someone else.

See, in today’s world, mainly immature people place such a strong emphasis on looks. The tragedy of this obsession comes in decades, when the fleeting nature of looks is uncovered, and you are lying naked on the ground with only your personality to cover your arse. As Lana del Rey asks, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”

My mind always comes back to the example of the tragic fire; a true friend or lover will still love you after a major fire singes half of your face off. The struggle between prioritizing looks over personality is demonstrated primarily in the adolescents and young adults of today’s world.

 

When all is said and done, change and progress are still important, but only when approached with the correct motivation. This reasoning would lie in the desire to better oneself for oneself, not someone else or to fit in with society.

Sometimes, it is nearly impossible to accept yourself as you are, or even to agree with what others tell you. When push comes to shove, the most logical and acceptable option would be to simply change yourself for the better.

Your approach to body image should rest on a strong foundation of disbelief in the concept of fat as something that can be universally and concretely determined; everyone’s opinion is entirely arbitrary, and whose opinion really matters is your own.

Self-acceptance and the general rejection of physical attraction as the only factor that makes you worthy of friendship and love is the first step in the self-love process.

This twisted tango with body image is merely a phase; in the end, the people who accept you for who you are and who you want to be are the ones that actually mattered. Once you have accepted yourself, you are free to go about changing yourself.

We are all on this road, but some of us are just facing the wrong direction.