Not listening by Josephine

Not listening by Josephine - September 2022 Scholarship Essay

If you could give one piece of advice to your past self, what would it be and why?

If I could give my past self a piece of advice I would tell myself to hear things differently. I’m in high school and adults always say high school will be the best part of life, but while in high school it doesn’t always feel that way to me. I tend to focus on the bad aspects of what I have heard, especially when it comes to things about myself.
We grow up in a society where mass marketing and social media portray to teens that skinny is good and fat is bad, pretty is good and ugly is bad. All of these messages have helped shape 16 year old me. When I hear these things I immediately focus on the bad: I’m not skinny enough. I’m not pretty enough, I don’t have enough friends, I’ll never be “popular”.
I wish instead I hadn’t let these things shape me. When people pay me compliments, I brush them off or don’t believe them. When I hear others say not nice things about me, I let it stick and I get insecure. I would tell my past self to ignore the bad and focus on the good, to let myself flourish from the compliments because it will make me a stronger and more confident person in the future.
I want to tell my past self to hear things differently because I would be a different person today. If I heard more that skinny and fat don’t matter maybe I wouldn’t be insecure about my body. If I heard more that pretty and ugly don’t matter maybe I could like what I see in the mirror. I would probably have more friends because I have had the confidence to talk to people I don’t know without worrying what they think about me.