Self Love: I am Forever good enough by Oluwatomisin

Self Love: I am Forever good enough by Oluwatomisin - September 2022 Scholarship Essay

Growing up, I feel that my biggest struggle was trying to be good enough for something or someone. If I could give one piece of advice to my past self, it would be that I should learn to love myself because I was enough. Whether it was my parents, my friends, or just society in general. I always felt that I needed to do things to satisfy others and live up to one standard or another. Trying to please others and seeking validation from outside sources, would only lead to self-hatred. If I had just learned to love myself, I wouldn't have kept seeking that validation that only made me less and less confident in myself.
When I was in elementary school, there was nothing I wanted more than to be pretty. If I was pretty, then everyone would like me and I'd feel good about myself. I remember having a best friend in the second grade who everyone loved and admired. I thought that if I became like her, I´d receive the same treatment and I´d be admired as well. I wanted to write like her, I wanted my hair to be as long as hers, and I even attempted to dress like her just so everyone would like me too. No matter what I tried, I was unable to become her which shattered my self confidence.
Later during my pre-teen years, I was faced with a lot of pressure from my parents to be the best and was constantly reminded of the sacrifice they made by bringing us to America. As a result, I wanted everything I did academically to be nothing less than perfect. It became so draining that it led to me losing the motivation to do the simplest of things because if it wasn't perfect, then it just wasn't enough. I became more and more dependent on academic validation in order to feel good about myself. Whenever I would score lower on tests or assignments, I would almost feel like my value as a person decreased.
Trying to be good enough for everything and everyone besides myself only led to the harming of my self-worth. I realized later when I began high school, that outside validation was never going to be enough. I needed to love myself and realize that I was the only person I needed to satisfy. If I could go back in time and speak to my past-self, I´d want her to have realized this back then.