Insecurities

Now Playing: The Scientist by Coldplay (questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as my heart)

It's always amazed me that pretty much every single person who has ever walked this earth is insecure. Even the most beautiful, amazing people (to me) have the deepest and most profound insecurities.

It really shocked and saddened me, that beautiful, talented people can become so profoundly discontent with themselves, and to desire to be better than is even possible. I always used to take comfort (strangely) in the fact that a more beautiful woman than me, a more talented woman than me, might be happier than me, and that I might be happy if I were more beautiful and talented. But it's not true. Confidence is not a prize bartered away to the highest bidder; it's something we have, somewhere within us, and only through strength and courage do we find it. 

I have my own fair share of insecurities. Not helped by the people I have met. I am that girl who is always, always passed over for someone else; not just by boys, but by friends, by teachers; I am always the girl come second and I hate it. I once loved a boy so much I did not realize how often and how deeply he put me down; how often he would make me feel so inferior that I would be thrilled if he looked twice in my direction. I had to watch everything I did or said, for fear of a backlash. My own friends stabbed me in the back when I faithfully tolerated and turned a blind eye to every petty annoyance, like I thought anyone would. It is not easy to overcome personal insecurities when you're always tossed in the gutter.

I think all girls are conditioned not to believe it when anyone - especially boys - tell them that they're beautiful, or that they're attractive, or that they don't need makeup or that they looked pretty on a particular day. There is so much pressure to be perfect, to be infallible, to constantly be endearing and enchanting and enigmatic; the media is our harshest critique, even if only a dozen people know you by name, and it is quite bizarre to realize that real people are not nearly so cruel.

I always used to assume that I was an anomaly. Although I am possibly the world's most cynical critique and I can hate people within half a heartbeat of knowing them, I can also be completely unjudging, and forgiving, and tolerant - probably far too much for my own good. I feel too much, I love too much, and although I'll slip white lies without batting an eyelid (the standard one is to immediately say 'it's someone from outside of school' when you're talking about someone to a classmate and another classmate tries to join the conversation) I won't actually go out of my way to lie for the sake of spouting a compliment. I love the quiet sincerity of compliments, and perhaps I should have a little more faith that other people are like me, too. But I am so unbelievably and irrationally terrified of people's judgements, people's opinions, that I think the sooner I learn to be fearless, the better.

It's amazing how much you can gauge from people just by talking to them. There is so much to read between the lines, so much to decipher about personality. Insecurities sing out, and they're quite saddening, but interesting. Little hypocrisies, tiny things that can make me shiver or bristle with annoyance, small traces of defensiveness or posessiveness or competition. Other people are so afraid of this; femininity, masculinity, sexuality, humanity - and I suppose I would be, too, if I weren't so caught up in how wonderfully fascinating we all are.