Ask RacheI: Never Good Enough

Dear Rachel,

My whole life I’ve never felt good enough. I feel like people don’t like me and I have a hard time liking myself. I’m always feeling that to be liked, I need fake nails and pedicures.. and a 4.0 GPA.. and to be rich and have great makeup… just so many things.. and I hate my body.

Sincerely, 

Never Good Enough

Dear Never Good Enough,

Your words hit home, because I get it. I get how much pressure there is, and the specific pressures that seem to focus typically on us women. It can be incredibly overwhelming. It has personally led me to some risky extremes. Plastic surgery, eating disorders, debt. Because it feels like if you don’t spend money on new clothes and new makeup and beauty products and services, you aren’t good enough. It feels like if you don’t skip that meal, or throw it up after, you aren’t good enough. It feels like if you don’t have big boobs and a tiny waist and Kim Kardashian’s butt, than you aren’t good enough. It feels like if you aren’t putting on ten layers of makeup with contour and fake eyelashes every single goshdang day, even if you’re not leaving your goshdang house, than you aren’t good enough. 

When is enough, enough?

I think it is easy for us to blame the makeup or the clothing itself, or to judge the women who take pleasure in these things. But I don’t see either of these options being beneficial. Because blaming makeup and clothing for our inability to love ourselves is like blaming guns for killing people. Guns are dangerous, but they had no intent to murder a human being. People kill people. Superficial things like makeup and beauty products and clothing, can be dangerous, but ultimately I don’t think they are the problem. I mean heck, I work in fashion and as a makeup artist, and I see these things boost confidence and self-love all the time! We are the problem. There’s nothing wrong with fake nails or lipgloss or extensions. And there’s no use when people put down other women and saying “real women don’t wear makeup.” “real women aren’t made of plastic.” “real women are au naturale.” those words can be just as harmful. Because real women come with every taste imaginable, some refusing to shave their armpits and others lasering every follicle. Some who don’t wear bras and some who stuff their bras, and some who stuff their boobs themselves. Some who hate makeup, some who love it. 

And I don’t think it matters too much where you fall within these extremes,

as long what you do to your body, you do so out of love.

Not hate.

It is your body. Your beautiful, gorgeous, handmade-for-you-just-by-God, body. It is not perfect, but it’s flaws are what make you a human being and not a doll or a robot. Unless you are a celebrity or a model, odds are you don’t have the time and money to maintain it like a Ferrari with weekly waxing and buffing. But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful or sacred. At the risk of comparing a woman’s body to a car, because heaven knows we don’t need to be compared to any more objects, I will for the sake of making one important analogy. Not all of us can afford the most luxury cars that were designed to attract attention, but if we have a car, we should be grateful. It should be clean and filled with gas and well maintained. We wouldn’t leave our cars in our garage because it might not be as nice as another car, because that’s not what cars are made for. How silly would that be?! It was made to be on the road. It was made to get us from place to place, to take us on adventures, to allow our loved ones to come along for the ride. Our bodies are no different. Not all of us can afford to have bodies that are tricked-out for the sake of getting attention, but if we have a body, we should be grateful. Attention isn't everything, attention can be shallow, and attention always fades. I mean come on, our attentions spans are like four year olds! We are always looking for the next shiny thing. So our bodies, like a vehicle, should be clean and filled with yummy food and well maintained. It shouldn’t stay inside because we’re afraid someone else’s body will be more expensively clothed or more done-up than ours. Our bodies were made to be on the road, in the mountains, at parties, in the library. Our bodies were made to get us from place to place, to take us on adventures, to allow our loved ones into our hearts.

What if our souls commanded the attention of a room? How cool would that be?!

I know how easy it is to compare. I wish I was skinnier sometimes. I wish my natural hair was long enough so that I didn’t feel insecure without my extensions. I wish I didn’t get weirdo breakouts, or that I was tanner or maybe a blonde. Because when you compare yourself to others, you never feel good enough. I also wish I had enough money to have a Ferrari. I wish I had a 4.0 GPA and a yacht. I wish for all of these things sometimes.

But in none of these things, are where happiness lies.

Happiness is not found in objects or things or money or materialism. It is found in love, in goodness, and in our passions. It is found in our small accomplishments day to day, not in our trophies. It is found when someone looks into our eyes and sees our inner beauty, not when we get eye-raped from someone who only sees us for our body.

Because when we place all of our focus on our bodies, all our self worth on our bodies, that’s what we begin to become. A body. In the vainest times of my life, when I wanted attention only for my looks and my body, that’s all I got. People noticed my body and my looks, but no one cared about what I was inside of all of that. And I can tell you, I never felt emptier or more lonely, even though I had never been more primped or polished. 

If you want to be liked for your makeup and your nails and your clothes and your flesh, you will be. 

But I dare you to demand to be loved for your heart. Loved for your ideas. Loved for your dreams.

If there is anything I could go back and redo, it would be the years wasted where I longed only to be noticed for things that fade and need to be touched up every week and replaced every few months and resized every year. I would chase the eternal, the immortal, the unchangeable. I would chase service, goodness, love, and God.

Thank the stars I’ve still got time,

and so do you.