Overcoming Societal Criticism: The Power of Self-Motivation and Inner Strength

“Oh, I think you’re looking fat!.” “This color doesn’t suit you well.” “Don’t mind, but I think you should use some cream.” “You failed?? I expected it. I knew you can never achieve anything in your life.” “Stop complaining, don’t be a cry-baby.” “You are so immature and lack self-motivation. You cannot achieve what u say you can!”

These are some sentences we listen very often in our lives and every time, they hurt us deeply. Though we know, No one is perfect in this world. For the society, perfection is associated with external beauty and success. This concept is so wrong. What actually matters is one’s “inner self”. If someone is successful, according to the definition of society but has no personal space, happiness, time for family, or if he is having some anxiety or depression but can’t express it openly, just to impress the world, he is not perfect. Being perfect, as by my definition is ; being happy and satisfied by what you are.

The thing is; we can not make everyone around us happy. Someone will be standing there offended just by our existence! So why wasting our life in efforts to impress them when we can use it for learning something we love.

This is a world of social media. Everything someone posts or shows us is not real. We all know about dozens of filters every celebrity use or the expensive product, which make them look perfect, are all deceptive. How can we criticize ourselves by comparing us to them? Even though we know all they show is a lie! So, why dream to look like a fake plastic barbie or an AI generated model!?

Looks are something we are born with. Allah gave us our skin tone, features, height, family, and caste. We can’t change them by any mean. Those are the things which should not matter about anyone. If someone has more weight or darker skin tone, it doesn’t make him less attractive or it doesn’t decrease his chance to become successful in life. Let’s clear the basic definition of success. Success is something that comes with hard work and efforts, not by looks. Being successful doesn’t mean that you are perfect, impresses everyone you meet, make a handsome amount of money or have a lot of social media fans and followers. This is not success. Success, by me, is being real always and giving 100% in everything we do. It can be our studies, any hobby we want to pursue or any new talent we discover. If it keeps us happy and we improve in it with every passing day, we are very close to being successful!

But here, let’s make another thing clear. Despite of one’s interest in a particular thing, it is okay to fail in it, for even more than once. Life doesn’t always remain bright. At times, the coin of reality flips and life becomes full of anxiety, failure, rejections, discouragement and pessimism. Sometimes, we try to impress people around us by changing ourselves. The change can be in dressing, looks, studies, career or even in opinions. Just to satisfy someone else, We become what they want us to become. Still in a corner, there is a person , who doesn’t even know us, but is really unsatisfied by us and criticizes whatever we do. The thing is; we can not make everyone around us happy. Someone will be standing there offended just by our existence! So why wasting our life in efforts to impress them when we can use it for learning something we love.

Nevertheless, if we start working on our dreams, we can’t always get them in first attempt. It is okay to fail but the guilt of failure should not overcome the motivation to succeed. Failure induces over thinking and this overthinking habit really scares us by heart wrenching thoughts as :”if I can’t get it now, I can never have it!” Or ” the failure pushed me away from success.”

To get out of this mental state, one needs motivation. We depend on our relationship, relatives, friends or even a random youtuber for this but the real motivation residues in One’s heart. No one knows you better than yourself. Only you know what you went through and how much you have improved since you started. So its mere you who can motivate you to stand again in front of this discouraging world. It comes with self-acceptance. One should accept himself as he is, not perfect though , but real, impressive and improving! Being perfect isn’t a criterion to be successful, being impressive is.!

You can impress this whole world just by your kind and honest nature, your intelligence, your talents, hard work, sympathetic character or even by your motivating thoughts ! The real success according to me is becoming a role model for someone in anyway you can. Imagine some children looking at your hanging portrait, somewhere, someday , thinking that they want to become you ; they want to be skilled as you are; they want to achieve what you have; they want the beautiful nature, you carry. So remember, do whatever you want to do, pursue your dreams, turn them into reality without taking judgements or discouragement from random people. If you do not look perfect , according to their definition, act like a deaf to their opinions. Your looks, skin tone, weight, or height doesn’t matter anymore if you have a pure white heart.
You can make your own perfect place in this challenging, materialistic, superficial and imperfect world, just by being you!

Maryam Rubab

The author is a freelance writer.

• Maryam Rubab

  https://spinetimes.pk/author/maryam-rubab/

  The Good, the Bad, and, the Financially Anxious