As women (and I'm sure this goes for men too) we are continuously told all the ways that we need to improve our minds, bodies and attitudes in order to feel better and attract the opposite sex. While all this is helpful and we've all at one time or another wished we had the perfect butt or abs that are to-die-for, we must at some stage come to terms with the fact that for us regular people with jobs, responsibilities and busier days it's hard to keep up our confidence levels while we're so busy.
I happen to be pretty happy with myself. My body doesn't suck and I've learnt to dress for by body (I'm a size 12-14 in women's Australian sized clothing and stand about 5'4"), I know I'm relatively smart and I know that my maturity levels are high and my mind is continuously stimulated with all of the activities that I keep in my life and I'm more than happy to call myself pretty on a good day; sometimes even beautiful... sometimes! A lot of my friends are guys and they have the ability to make me feel like I really am beautiful and my girl friends tell me I look nice every time I see them. So why is it that as soon as I say "I'm pretty" or "I deserve better" I'm slammed down and called "Conceited" or "Stuck Up"?
The definition of 'Conceited' is "Excessively proud of oneself; vain" also "arrogant" and "vain" can be used to describe it. I feel like the word 'conceited' has all of this bad stigma attached to it and for good reason, people only use it in bad context, same as the word "judgemental" but we'll get to that another day. However I am not excessively proud. I don't tell everyone how beautiful I am and how I could get any man I want because of my beauty, I'm not like that. I just think, standing in front of the mirror, I'm an attractive person. That's not bad at all.
So why is it a bad thing that call myself pretty? Why is bad that I think I'm smart? I feel like this is the opposite response that I should be getting. Of all the media telling me that I'm not skinny enough or that no man wants a woman with huge thighs, should I not be congratulated that I've beat these ideals? I'm confident in my skin and with who I am entirely. This is not to say that I never look at those few inches of fat on my stomach and wish it weren't there, but all-in-all on a day-to-day basis I'm very happy with how I look, how smart I am and how my mind works.
After all of this you can imagine my horror when one of my friends blurted out that "if [I] get over [my] conceit we can be friends".
I purely do not understand how being confident throws me smack dab into the "conceited" category.
So if you're like me and are one of the lucky women or men who are confident in themselves and are proud of who they are as a person, then I congratulate you. It's hard enough to choose a nice top never mind having to think about how it will actually look on you, so well done. You're a winner. You deserve a round of applause for not listening to the haters and getting on with your lives. And for those of you still working on it, focus on the good parts of you, find what you do best and stick to it. You to deserve to feel like a million bucks every day.
Ashley xx
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