For those of you who haven't seen this new trend, it's been taking over my Facebook for about a week. Basically, the lovely ladies on my news feed have been challenging each other to post 4/5 pictures of themselves where they felt beautiful. Having observed this for a little bit, my first thought was honestly, what pictures I would put up should I be called out.
Guilty as charged, some of my first thoughts involved Homecoming with my close friends, family events with my brothers, or silly pictures with my dog. And while I appreciate this concept, I think some of us are missing the point.
We're told to find pictures where we felt we looked beautiful, and naturally, most of us think of wonderful, exciting, eventful memories with people we love...and that's completely fair. But what about every day? What about waking up with messy hair and spending lazy days in your favorite sweatpants and over-sized T-shirts. What about how we look when we aren't looking for beauty. What about just becoming comfortable with who we are...not for special events, not for when we're spending a night on the town with our girlfriends...just who we are. What if we stopped taking six different pictures because the first ones made us look fat...or ugly...or whatever. What if we were genuinely happy with the imperfections of frizzy hair, a droopy eye, or an unflattering angle. What if we just felt beautiful when we woke up, splashed water on our faces, and faced the day. What if that was enough? I think it can be. Because beauty is more than a time or a place, an action or an event, a friend or a loved one. Beauty is a strong smile and a quiet confidence that imperfection is more than okay, it's downright gorgeous. And I know I've already broken like all the rules, but I would like to challenge everybody reading--girls and guys--to realize that you don't have to search back in your old photo albums for a "beautiful" picture. You are beautiful. Every day. No matter what.
