true self acceptance is hard to reach but i believe it is the only true road to real contentment.
I used to hate myself because i was always comparing myself to others, i always used to listen to other peoples critisisms and accept them unquestioningly. over the years ive looked deep within myself and thought about what qualties i truely value from other people and tried to hold onto them.
i used to be impressed and drawn to people who were the so-called cool people, those who oose confidence and tick all the right boxes that society deems normal. The sort of people who would gain a following by putting down and belittleing everyone around them. I used to want to be like them so i could fit in and my anxiety started to grow because i was not like them and I would be put down all the time. I believed something was wrong with me.
Then i began to realise that what i really truely value in people is kindness, acceptance and loyalty. not humour, confidence or financial/academic success.
well im not a particularly funny person, nor that confident and im not very succesful (dropped out of uni) but i think of myself normally as a kind person and someone who accepts other people for all their differences and so i like to think of myself as a good person.
accepting myself has made me much happier but not in the way i expected. Im probably less social than ever before. I have less friends than ever in my life but im much happier. Now if someone doesnt like me i can accept that, so long as i did nothing wrong to make them dislike me, where as before i would always make an effort to change my personality so that they would accept me.
Now ive come to really appreciate the people who have stuck by me over the years and really value their friendship. Im much happier being in a small crowd of people who are apart from mainstream society, but that i can trust rather than feeling like an outsider in a larger society.
If this means that for a large part of my life im alone then so be it.