We live in a society where who we want to be is more celebrated than who we currently are.
We are a society that thinks excessively about the future that we already believe our present is in the past.
We browse social media and the internet gawking over our favorite celebrities and commenting “body goals,” “goals AF,” or “that’s not even fair” stacked with several emojis on to the end. We spend so much time saying “I wish I looked, lived, or dressed like that,” that we do not appreciate who we currently are. I will admit to pouting my lips after scrolling through a model’s Instagram and criticizing my own looks or life.
Of course, we, as both younger and older adults, are not the only ones who display these thoughts and behaviors.
Our younger siblings, relatives, friends and acquaintances mimic this.
We were all younger and repeated “I cannot wait to grow up.” We watched the older students stroll through our cramped school hallways and admire the mature air they carried themselves with.
The difference between us and those younger than us is the influence of social media.
They are bombarded with the same images we see daily, opening Instagram and liking pictures of women posed seductively and exposed in clothing that costs as much as college tuition.
Tumblr blogs are plastered with the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
They open Snapchat and watch videos of people spreading hundreds, shaking plastic bags filled with drugs or pictures of celebrities with cars worth more than a house.
We see the same things and then proceed to belittle the lives we live now. We nitpick at even the smallest of things in our lives and find fault in all aspects of our lives.
It is damaging to all of us, but even more damaging to those younger than us because this self-loathing becomes
ingrained in their development into young adulthood. Teenagers will scour the racks looking for clothes that resemble what they saw a popular Instagram model wearing; they will raid their older sibling’s or relative’s closet for a taste of what it is like to be older. They will swipe makeup off of dressers and desks to recreate what they saw a YouTube personality do with his or her makeup, not understanding what it really means to be older.
They are unprepared for leering eyes, no matter what clothes or makeup she is wearing. They are unprepared for the endless jeers, snide remarks, rumors and catcalls. They do not understand the frustration of explaining that you wear makeup because you like it and not because you want to hide.
They do not understand the uncomfortable situation of being followed and the anxiety of telling a man to leave you alone out of fear of his retaliation.
Young men look at music videos and want to copy what their favorite musicians are wearing. They want the jewelry, clothes, hair, muscular body and the women that come with it. They then compare themselves to the men who cover magazines and pose for advertisement spreads and look in the mirror with disgust.
Because we are older, we need to work with dispelling this self-hate from our lives in order to help those that are coming after us. We have to help ourselves before we can help others.
We have to admire without then bashing ourselves.
Everywhere you look, there will always be someone more beautiful with more money and better clothes than you staring back from a screen, a page or a billboard. Someone who can acknowledge these things without undermining themselves, compliment without the sour taste of jealousy lingering in their mouths, and smile without frowning on the inside is in a good place with themselves.
That is howwe all should want to be. That should be our goals.
