Every Day I'm More Human and Less Perfect

Every day I’m more human and less perfect, and yet, I’m happier. I have become the best, most important medicine that I could take. Maybe it’s my age, but I’ve finally been able to understand that we were meant to live and let live. Because it’s not worth it to lose yourself in others and stop being yourself. People who want me to be different, simply don’t love me.

It’s often said that there’s no better knowledge than knowing yourself. This is true, but it’s even wiser for those who know themselves to establish a strong alliance with themselves and guide themselves where they’ve peacefully decided to go. Because knowledge without action makes no sense; it’s nothing more than a fantasy. Because people who know their own sadness should find the courage to relieve it.

I’m awake both inside and out. I am my own medicine, my talisman, a rebel heart who no longer wants captive love. I’m more human, less perfect, and I’m happy. I am brave enough to love myself every day, free from those narrow minds who say that my dreams are too big.

It might seem curious, but in the context of personal growth, there are often people who say that people are born twice. The first time is when we arrive in the world, and the second is when we discover emotional pain, loss, and the breakdown of our foundations for the first time.

Sometimes, suffering is the precursor to rebirth. When we suffer, we should become our own healers, magicians who use our artisan fingers to bandage and cauterize our own invisible wounds. And we’ll never forget the knowledge we gain from this, because it turns us into the beautiful beings we are today.

Less perfect, but wiser

Women are always subject to social norms that demand excellence from us. We must be good daughters, good wives, and perfect mothers. And of course, we must maintain a perfect appearance, where wrinkles, stretchmarks, cellulitis, and extra weight are prohibited. Only when you know that you are imperfect and rise proudly and rebelliously against these notions, will you find true happiness.

An interesting fact that is often sold to women is that despite everything, we always have a bad image of ourselves. Just do a simple test and search “self-esteem and women,” and you’ll instantly find thousands of resources geared towards offering advice on the subject.

We’re instantly defined as “fragile,” and then as “combative,” and then as “affected by Wendy syndrome,” and shortly after that, as examples of of daily struggle and pillars of our families. Society likes to play with defining us, when in reality, we know very well who we are, what we want, and how to get it. 

However, our own social environments put up barriers against these aspirations.

The difficult struggle for happiness

An interesting study done by the American Association of University Women discovered that many girls experience a decrease in self-esteem when they enter adolescence. Up until that moment, pre-adolescents are exceptional creatures, with big and interesting ideas about the world, and with a good self-concept.

However, this study showed that around age 15 or 16, many girls prefer to please others to fit into their respective social contexts. But in order to please, they must fit into a mold and follow certain aesthetic and behavioral patterns. And their self-esteem is obviously frayed throughout this period.

The most interesting part is that many boys also go through this period of searching, exploring their own identities, and questioning their self-concept. However, as psychologist Jean Twenge explains in her work, women are often misjudged to have an “eternal low self-esteem,” which can’t be demonstrated, and is completely false.

Women and their personal strengths

Anthropologist and biologist Helen Fisher explained in her book, The First Sex, that women aren’t born, they’re made. When one perceives oneself as less perfect and asserts their right to be that way, many of their strengths emerge as a result.

It’s possible that during adolescence, we get carried away by other people’s desires. But after all, when we’re young, we don’t have many choices; we just take the first thing that passes in front of us. Little by little, we begin to filter ourselves and make demands on ourselves. Thus, our identity is strengthened, and we know perfectly well what we want and what’s left over.

Women today aren’t like Wendy, caring for Peter Pan. Women today don’t believe in fairy tales or immature men who don’t want to grow up. They love themselves, trust in their intuition and instincts, and believe that they deserve to achieve their dreams.

While it’s true that women might suffer more anxiety and depression than men, they possess better personal and psychological resources to deal with these situations and get stronger from them. Because if they understand anything, it’s resilience.

In fact, many people might not know this, but women have learned to look inside themselves, like true sorceresses of ancestral wisdom. They understand cycles, rebirth, losing and conquering, letting go and learning how to receive. They’re not fragile creatures at all. Every woman is made of luminous leaves that have bathed in the light of the sun, and roots that have grown during the worst of storms.