When you read those fashion magazines and see pictures of models strut their stuff like it’s nobody’s business, you would think that they have all the confidence in the world due to their hot model-esque physiques. However, it’s not all what it’s cracked up to be. They have their respective self-esteem issue themselves for instance, their body; constantly maintaining their weight so they would get booked for a job to pay the rent and buy more food that’ll not get them fat.

What about us mere mortals? Those who weren’t born with model-esque features? Does our confidence sink more than those who have more self-esteem?

Self-esteem is all about valuing yourself in a more positive way. Our surroundings may differ from that. Some people, they can value themselves well than others. Why is that? Is it because they receive compliments every now and then? Or is it because they constantly receive compliments? Self-esteem can be brought up not only in the physical aspect but it can also be shine through from the inside and I do not only mean your personality. Your talents for example, do you think you’re good at drawing? Good. Feed yourself on that. How about with talking? Feed yourself on that too!

The idea is to trick your brain into respecting yourself more. Most of the time we’re constantly comparing ourselves to those who already have developed this self-respect from self-esteem ballad. If we focus too much on others sometimes we get lost in translations. We get so caught up on catching up to their standards that we forgot to step back and realize, is this who I really am? Why do I still feel insecure?

We all have experienced or are going through low self-esteem turmoil, myself included. As a pre-teen up to my high school years, I always had this baby face and awkward stance when it comes to socializing. My conversations mainly consisted about animes and online games. My clothing of choice were so outdated as I didn’t like to shop for trendy clothes as much at the time. My sisters who were in their 20 have loved partying and they would always go out and have fun with their friends. Sometimes, when my late sister who was in her 30’s came back from KL, she would bring them out for drinks and fun in those clubs with private rooms that has bouncers at the entrance. Here’s where it gets personal. I was around 14 at the time. My nieces were 15 and 17 years old and I consider them as close family members as we grew up together. The difference between them and me at the time was they were the opposite of who I was. They appear older due to how they present themselves socially; appearance-wise, clothing, make-up, topics and they had the latest gadgets every year. Gadgets that I can only dream of my parents could buy for me.  I didn’t even know the existence of eye-brow pencil and the difference between that and eyeliner was! I looked up to them because they were all that I wanted to be. I tried to be like them but it didn’t work. My baby face and plump physique was too ‘Madeline’ and Disney. I was still into Barbies for God’s sake! So, on the night when my late sister brought my sisters out, my nieces were invited, of course. I collected the courage to asked my sister knowing that I would risk myself getting embarrassed and degraded, why wasn’t I invited but my nieces who are only 1 and 3 years older than me can? And of course my sister answered, ‘because they look older. The people there wouldn’t want to check their identification if they look older.’ At 18 my sister wouldn’t even invite me to her bachelorette party because she thought I was too innocent but she didn’t had any problem in inviting my nieces.

This had caused me to shut down my social-communication skill and had caused me to be out-casted from the young people in my family as I wasn’t as interesting and fun as the others. Whenever my nieces would go out (even with the presence of my mature niece who’s 2 years younger than me), let it be to the mall or for a quick bite, they wouldn’t even bother to invite me unless their parents’ or conscious reminded them to. They would have fun, going out spending time with their cousins, making memories while I was in my room, playing online games or studying pretending not to be bothered by the fact that I was distant from the people that unconsciously hurts me. It’s not their fault to begin with, I know. I should’ve dressed more slutty and be more up-to-date in the first place to bring up my confidence, right? Please sense my sarcasm.

That was really a tipping point for me. Even now, at 20 years old, those words and memories still resonate with me and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Even now, my nieces are still waaaay more advanced than me in terms of dating experience, clothing, and social. They’re living and studying in KL now. My niece whose one year older than me is studying her Degree in Law (and also gets compliments on how beautiful and smart she is and most of the time gets asked out to dates by complete, hot strangers) and the other one is taking Early Childhood Education and planning on getting engaged to her long-time boyfriend who’s a veterinarian-in-training after graduating. I looked up to them so much but why wasn’t I able to look over myself? It made me physically ill by just worrying on how I can’t keep up with them to be accepted. My self-esteem went downhill as I see theirs sky-rocketed to success leading to a bright future. It’s the worse feeling ever.

However, I came to realization that I am my own person and they are theirs. They may have been blessed with early exposure and good fashion sense along with pretty physiques and features to begin with but I have something that I’m proud of:  a voice; which is why I’m putting it to good use and sharing with you this bit of my experience. Oh, and my baby-face? I’m not worried about that anymore. I realized that when I’m in my 40’s, I would still have a late 20’s/early 30’s face ;)

Will I be different today if they treated me differently? Probably but I probably would've been too cocky to even bother sharing these with you.

I’ve slowly came to accept myself as to who I am; an introvert with dozens of inner voices whispering the truth of my surroundings. It’s not so bad once I realized that being my own individual can be a blessing in disguise. For example, I like travelling and writing or anything that has something to do with the creative process of it, seeing things that are foreign to me and so I always find myself finding ways on enhancing it which lead me to be friends with lecturers, students and people who have the same interest. I may not be in a major city right now, having the time of my life but it doesn’t matter. I have to follow my own pace. It’s frustrating to always want things at the very moment so why not just wait?

Self-esteem does lead to success, only if you let it to.