We live in a world so obsessed with external appearances that the package has become more important than the content. Nowadays, looking good on the outside has become our main priority, our obsession, and the only reason is to be accepted by a society that either condemns or glorifies you based on your appearance. Therefore, liking yourself in a society that plays with your self-esteem and expects you to feel ugly is a rebellious act that gives you freedom!

This society wants us to believe that, in order to be successful, we need to look beautiful on the outside. From the moment we are born, we are exposed to different sources whose only purpose is to make us feel unattractive. They created the concept that “ugly” equals unhappiness and “beauty” equals happiness and success. It seems you can only love yourself if you’re beautiful on the outside. But that, of course, never happens. Why? Because if we finally loved ourselves, the business would be over. Where there is no business, there is no money.

Our minds have been infected with this virus since day one. When we are born, they cut our hair, pierce our ears so we can look pretty with little earrings, dress us like dolls, and expect us to act like princesses and princes. As we grow, they give us skinny, blonde, and blue-eyed Barbies to play with. This infernal virus continues to sicken our minds with makeup, plastic surgery, reality shows featuring good-looking people, movies starring beautiful actors, music performed by pretty boys and girls, and TV commercials that brainwash us day in and day out.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The problem is we’ve accepted the idea that we need to look good to feel happy. We believe that eventually, we’ll love ourselves once we’re beautiful on the outside, so we buy all the products we can find to feel happy and like ourselves. But this never ends. We never feel completely happy with ourselves, and we want more. We want to look like the girls in the magazines—and the problem is, they don’t even look like that in reality. We’re chasing a fake stereotype of beauty that doesn’t exist. The problem is they make us believe it does, so we never stop buying the products, submitting ourselves to this maniacal marketing machine that owns us.

There’s always something new—a new type of plastic surgery, a revolutionary product to make you look 20 years younger, a wonderful tanning lotion to give you a year-round glow, a new makeup that transforms your face into a fake and unnatural doll. There will always be something else you need to feel beautiful and happy. This never stops. Never.

So, if you want to be beautiful, start by liking yourself just the way you are. Love the real you without any artificial products, special clothes, or anything else. Simply love what society calls “imperfections” because they’re not imperfections—they’re perfect. You are perfect just the way you are. Beauty is a concept that society created to set a standard and profit from it, but everyone is beautiful. We are unique, original, one of a kind. We don’t need to be anyone else to be beautiful. Being ourselves and liking ourselves is what makes us beautiful.

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” – Louise L. Hay

What I mean is that it’s completely okay to buy and use all the products you want, as long as your happiness doesn’t depend on them. Change your hair color, wear makeup, go on a diet, hit the gym, buy new clothes, use your favorite cream—but do it because you like it, not to impress others, not to be accepted, not to feel happy or successful. You’ll never feel completely happy if your self-worth depends on those things.

Wake up in the morning, go to the mirror, and look at yourself without makeup, with disheveled hair, wearing your Minnie Mouse pajamas. Look at your face with its wrinkles and pimples, look at your body with all your “imperfections,” and smile at yourself because you are beautiful. Love yourself in that very moment, and you’ll find the freedom to be yourself without needing anything to validate it.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

They once said: “Beauty hurts.” No, my friend—beauty doesn’t hurt. What hurts is not being able to look in the mirror and like what you see simply because you don’t look like the girl in the magazine. Not being able to see your true beauty makes you miserable. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to look “beautiful”—you will always feel miserable if you don’t accept yourself. And that hurts far more than high heels, plastic surgery, or waxing.

Can you see the real problem here? It’s you. It’s the way you see yourself. Change the way you see yourself, fall in love with your true self, and you’ll change your whole life—and save a lot of money, too! 😉

If you look in the mirror and like what you see, do you think you’ll care what others think? Absolutely not! That’s called self-confidence, and that’s what it means to like yourself. You don’t need anything to be beautiful—you already are. Just remember that and be free to be your authentic, wonderful, and beautiful self!