What’s the point?
Tags: Thoughts, Teenager, School, Body Positivity, Stress

School, exams, money, my body. These are things that are almost constantly on my mind as a female high school student. I often find that I stress out about tests, scores, due dates and I know this isn’t something uncommon to stress out about. Maybe it’s because my school provides me with enough homework to sink a ship. But why do I fret about these things when ultimately I’m a grain of sand in this universe? In space time (or how ever long this universe will last), human life on earth probably means nothing. Something like the life of a butterfly in my life. Then again we can only speculate where the universe starts and ends.

Anyways, let me reel myself back in before I go off on a tangent. I guess what i’m trying to say is, why do I care so much, when in the end, it’s pretty much meaningless? To be honest, I’m not quite sure. Maybe it’s because I want to make my parents proud or fulfill my personal expectations. Or am I just chasing the mirage of happiness? The problem is I don’t know where my happiness is. I’ve grown up with high expectations for myself, from a young age. In primary school I was a high achiever (don’t mean to toot my own horn haha.) My dad always told me that he raised my younger sister and I to strive for success for ourselves and not for someone else. To this day, I think that this holds true. I do think that I strive to succeed for my own benefit. But a small portion of me works hard to make my parents proud. I know this sounds incredibly cringey, and it is, but I don’t want to let my parents down. I want them to be proud of my efforts, because seeing them proud of me makes me more happy than simply being proud and impressed with myself.

You know that common children’s story where people do things for others without anyone knowing, and the moral is to do good things even when people aren’t watching? (woah that was a mouthful) I wish I could be that person who does these things with zero credit, but I want a little bit of validation from others. To be completely honest, when I do well in something, feeling proud of myself sin’t enough, I want others to also be happy. I know that’s terrible, I know I should just be happy with myself, but for some reason I’m not satisfied. But this added pressure of wanting to impress my parents is something that is seemingly wearing me out. My parents often say “just do your best.” Which I know if supposed to comfort me, but I know that my best sometimes isn’t enough. Don’t get me wrong, I have amazing parents, they’re not in the wrong here. The problem is the internalized pressure that I’ve been putting on myself, constantly, for my whole schooling life.

When I walk out of an exam or test or whatever, people often ask “how’d you go?” I usually say something that’s kinda murky or something that doesn't exactly answer the question. “Not too sure” “uh, I do know, it was okay I guess…” something along those lines. I can’t recall a time when I walked out of a test feeling like I absolutely smashed it. Even when in reality I did. And when people say “well, as long as you tried your best, that’s all that matters.” Yeah, I know, but that isn’t enough for me. My best isn’t enough for me.

*I wish my best was better*

I sometimes reminisce about the primary Sarah. The Sarah that was happy and didn’t care about her weight, didn’t care about whether she had a butt or not. Nothing hurts more than flicking through old photos of when you were much thinner than now, even though at the time you thought you were overweight. I’ve never been overweight. I’m quite average for my size. I go back and forth from wanting to have an ass but also wanting to be rlly thin, to the point where I have to think, who am I doing this for? how is this unhealthy negative thinking doing anyone any good?

I don’t remember the last time I was happy with my body. “Love yourself”, “Love your imperfections”, “its all about body positivity.” These are slogans that I see on my Instagram and Tiktiok on a daily basis. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, the motive is good and the idea is in the right place. I’m all for this notion that we need to all be happy with our bodies and I’m rlly happy that there’s been this recent boost in awareness and spreading of body positivity. But when I’m told to “love my imperfections” I can’t help but wonder why they are imperfections to begin with. Why are stretch marks, rolls and body hair imperfections? Why do they denote “imperfect?” I know i’m not the only one in this boat. To accommodate all the people I think that are in the same boat, there would have to be an island, or maybe a country. I’m sure there are tens of thousands of girls, similarly being crushed by the pressures of society to fit into this tiny box of what is “ beautiful.”

But it’s not just girls, its guys too. What is “manly?” What connotations come stringing along with this word? I personally have never been that attracted to guys with a tonne of muscle. I know girls who are, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but personally, it doesn't hold any value to me. If they do have it, great, if they don’t that’s also great. I often think about how guys must feel when it comes to their body image. Because girls vocalize about these problems through social media, through friends and family. Of course I’m making a huge generalization here, so forgive me for that. I don’t know, it’s just something that I've thought about for a while.

So, tying back to what I started out with. Why do I care so much about my body? It’s eventually going to become wrinkly anyways? (I know that’s super pessimistic of me) Why can’t I just accept my body for what it is? I don’t have to love it, I can just accept that it does what it needs to. It takes me where I want to go, lets me eat, sleep, walk, talk, do everything I need it to do. Why can’t that just be enough? This is one of my on going goals for my life. *to learn to accept my body* I set this for an ongoing goal because I know that realistically it isn’t something i’m going to achieve anytime soon.

If you’re still reading this, wow thank you, I don’t really know how you survived my roller coaster of emotions splattered on this page. This is actually my first ever piece I've written on this site. So I hope that maybe you enjoyed it? If you just found it simply confusing I guess i’m not surprised because there’s zero coherence in this piece haha. Anyways thanks xo :)