You should see their determined faces while they excersice. The sweat running down their features and dropping in their cloth. Their concentration.
Some people go to the gym in order to be skinnier. Others go to improve health. A few, to just chat and find new friends while burning some calories. But most of the people go, I believe, to relieve stress. To let it all out. Decharge. Get rid of all those intense feelings, that at some point end up drowning us...
I go to the gym for all of the above. To maintain my figure, sure. To be healthy. To decharge, hell yeah. It's so therapeutic. I love it.
But well, what I was going to talk to you about originally was what came to my mind while I ran. I was watching these two fat women runing in front of me. And I started thinking of self-acceptance. Of self-eestem and why what others think matters so much. I mean, if what everyone thinks is what matters, then do we truly have an opinion about ourselves of our own? We so often fall into comparisons and criticism. Sometimes comparing ourselves to the plastic celebrities and heavily photoshoped models in the magazines, feeling sorry for how we look, who we are. And sometimes, finding security in enhancing other's defects, so that we can stand out, or in a way, justify or minimize our own flaws.
We never actually stop and think how the other person might be feeling. Or how are we really feeling. Is it that we are scared of looking like that? Or is it that deep down, we feel that we actually look like that? because honestly, I find it difficult that deep down we actually feel better by criticizing or making fun of others.
I think that subsconciously, we find comfort by thinking that those people envy us somehow. By thinking that we are actually better because some of us aren't fat. But what we don't see, is that maybe we are not obese, but rather akward, ugly, pinoccios, weird faced.. And that we, sometimes, by doing that, is a way of feeling sorry for ourselves. For that we know we are no better. And we look no better. 'Cause we all got flaws. Either we want to accept it or not, it's a fact.
I find myself envying those women. Because even if they're not under everyone's stereotype of what means being beautiful, they sure look radiant. Radiant with hope, maybe. With happiness and confidence. They really are comfortable with how they look. They love it. They feel sexy. And they are in the gym, not to look beautiful to others, but to improve who they are and what they stand for. They don't think they need to go to fit other's standards, or so that they can be called beautiful by everyone. I can see that. Because they're not shy. They walk and excersice with they heads looking strait into the horizon, not down with embarrassment. They wear their sports tight shirts with dignity, without putting their arms around their stomach to cover their imperfect abs. They don't look around, they're focused, and do their excerise for pure enjoyment.
I envy them, because I wish I were so carefree. I don't look like a stereotype, neither I intend to, but I often feel pressure to be skinnier. I look myself in the mirror, and even though I know I'm not fat, I still see imperfection. I see the bodies of Giselle Bundchen and Heidi Klum in y head. An feel fat. And horrible. Because part of our self-eestem is based in standarts. Is based in others opinion. Because it's important for us that someone tell us how pretty we look once in a while. It's important that a few guys turn their heads to watch us walking by. Because that way, we feel that we are being true to ourselves every time we look in the mirror and think 'I'm beautiful'. And that's why so many women and now mostly teenagers are getting plastic surgery. Because the problem is, we don't see beauty as something that comes from happiness, enjoyment and life, we see it as a fashion.
If Angelina Jolie appears in the magazines, then having big lips, big boobs and being extremely skinny is hot. If Jessica Biel makes the cover of Sport's Ilustrated, then the athletic body tipes become the must. If Victoria Beckham appears in the Calvin Klein ad, then supper skinny, toned, long bodytipes, short hair, and thin lips are the most gorgeous thing a woman can have.
We are mistaken. That's not beauty. That's fashion and trends. That's the public certain attention to a sudden aspect of human figure. Not beauty. And if everything that makes us unique is changed by plastic surgery, then won't we end up looking ordinary? And, at some point, not so beautiful anymore? Since new standarts have been established?
We must learn to live as we are. We must learn to make the most of it. To enhance our virtues and improve our flaws. So that then, one day, when someone ask us how we look so good, we'llbe able to say we did it all by excelling, never changing, the tiniest bit of who we are.
Here I make a public promise to myself of never getting plastic surgery. Of learning to live, happily, with who I am, what I stand for, how I look, no matter what. Regardless of my fat days, ugly days, pity days.. I will see past that. I will see then my virtues and the multiple reasons to stay true to myself, both in image and mind.
WG
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