Do I really feel pretty?
About a week ago, I watched this movie "I feel Pretty". It is about a woman, an ordinary one just like you and me. She hurt her head in her spin class. When she woke up after that mishap, she believed that she has become beautiful because of some magic. Her life takes a completely transformational path once she started believing that she is beautiful. In the end she realises that she was always the same and then the movie becomes a bit preachy about how the beauty lies inside and we just have to believe it. But it is interesting, isn't it? Just the belief that she is beautiful makes her confident and she goes after her dream without a care about the world. It made me wonder how many years of learning and unlearning is required for reaching that stage where I can have that self confidence to go after everything I want in life?
In the movie, there is a dialogue - " When we are little girls, we are full of confidence ". The problem with me is that I don't even remember that stage. The only way I escaped the rude comments about not being beautiful enough was by burying my head in books and not socializing. I believe that helped me a great deal in developing interests in other areas of life, which eventually lead me to pursue things that mattered to me. There were times when I paid so much attention to my looks and fortunately that never lasted for more than a month. I never had that much energy to go after beauty with great consistency. I think in 30s everybody comes into terms with who we really are and the outside opinion rarely matter. But it doesn't mean that our self confidence soars high.
I believe self confidence for women is not something that just springs from beauty. There are so many things that we were taught as part of the social conditioning, which hinder our progress. Some of us fake it until we make it. For others, like me, it's a life long journey. I hope to acquire the high level self confidence required to survive in the corporate world only when I turn 90. It's a slow process for people like me. Until then, I do not think feeling pretty would make me confident.
