Hi, I'm new.

Hi, I'm new.

I've never really done this before and I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do.

 I'm stupid and inexperienced, I'm probably gonna mess this up a bit. But that's okay. I'll make some mistakes and so will you, we can figure this out together. 

I have said these words or something close to them so many times in the last two years. 

Writing. 

Cooking. 

Painting. 

Dancing. 

Spelunking. 

Singing. 

Driving. 

Dating. 

Kissing. 

Obviously the last three being the most prevalent. I've been handling at least some form of cooking and writing for a long time. I'm not great at either of them but I at least have an idea of what I'm supposed to do. 

Driving. 

Dating. 

Kissing. 

I got my permit when I was 15 but the license, the dating and the kissing all started in October. I'm still really new.

 I'm a good driver, but I'm still new. There are so many scenarios that I have yet to face. 

I like dating, but I'm still new, I'm not used to worrying about what another person is thinking or feeling. 

I like kissing, but I'm not the greatest at it.  I'm still pretty new.

I'll tell you a secret though, everyone my age is new. We're idiots, we're babies and we have no idea what we're doing. 

It's gonna be awkward and it's gonna be embarrassing. 

But I would so much rather have an awkward "oh my gosh he missed my lips and dragged his mouth down my face" kiss with another stupid 16 year old like myself than with my future husband. 

I would rather learn to French kiss (or actually, how NOT to French kiss) with a boy I liked my sophomore year than with with my future husband. 

I am new. I am inexperienced. But so are the boys. That's why we do this. That's why we date. God could just tell us who we end up with, not because he chooses for us but because he knows us well enough to know who we will choose. He could save us all the stress and pain of dating, but then we would have no experience. We would meet our eternal companion and have to have all our embarrassing experiences with them. I don't know about you, but I want to be prepared when I meet the one I'm gonna marry. I want to already know what I like and don't like, I want to be unafraid. I want to be ready. 

So yes, I am new. But I won't be new forever, so I better get all my stupid mistakes over and done with while I still have an excuse. 

He got more than he bargained for.

Today my best friend texted me a strange question. The poor boy probably got a little more than he bargained for with the answer. 

"What do you think you're best feature is?"

"Mine?"

"Yes yours"

"I dunno. That's a weird question"

"It's kind of a social experiment, I see all these videos about girls and beauty and I wish that all girls knew how beautiful they are it makes me sad.  haha, sorry it sounds dumb. But I wanted to see if girls have things they like about themselves."

"That's sweet:)

So we're talking physical?"

"Let's do both"

"Hmm...

I have an answer for you,

But it's long and I have to eat. 

I'll be back..."

"So the thing with those videos is the girls always seem to LEARN that they're pretty or they have worth or whatever. I already know I'm pretty. I already know that I'm good enough or I have something to offer or whatever. I already know that and I think most other girls do too. They're just not willing to admit it. When we talk about our flaws it makes other people think that it's bad to talk about our strengths. Or when people compliment us, we feel like we have to downplay our strengths to make other people feel better.  Like when people tell me I'm skinny, I never know what to say. When people talk about me being skinny, they're comparing their bodies to mine and I don't know what to say, it's awkward. There's not really a way to down play it without the other person feeling worse. Being skinny has never been something I've cared about, but it's something other people care about. And I don't know how to make them feel better otherwise I would. When girls are talking about how they hate their hair or their skin or their bodies, other girls pick up on the attitude and do it too.  Another problem is the dating scene, girls feel like they're not good enough when they see other people getting attention from boys and they don't. They feel like what they have to offer isn't what people want. 

The last problem is that we can see our own strengths and weaknesses while we can mostly only see other peoples strengths. We compare our worst with other people's best. Some of it is internal but a lot of it is taught. Society teaches girls to hate themselves and then wonders why they do. And then they try to fix it, but they don't know how.

For me particularly, I know I'm pretty great, I'm just not used to other people thinking that too."

Unedited. Unchanged. Original conversation. Food for thought. 

Insecurity

Hey,

I know you struggle. I know you feel inadequate. I do too. Everyone does. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but sometimes it can be really hard to see our strengths. We are usually our own worst critic. We see our weaknesses before our strengths, but when it comes to other people, we only see the strengths. We only see what others want us to see. We only see their highlight reel.   We don't see the out-takes. We know ourselves, we see the out-takes, the bloopers and the behind the scenes. We see ourselves as we really are. We compare our worst to other people's best, and that's not fair. It's not fair to us, and it's not fair to them. 

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person." -John Green, Paper Towns. 

Deep down, we all know we can be great. We know our own capabilities, and our own strengths. We know we can do amazing things. Our problem is we are often times afraid that other people will put us down. We are afraid that because we can see our flaws, other people can too.

 Some people will put us down. There will always be negative people. That's no secret. The real secret is, the people that put us down, 9/10 won't put us down based on our flaws but on our strengths. They will try to make us question our strengths because the areas where we are strong are the areas where they are weak. It's sounds like something you'd hear in Elementary school but it's true throughout our entire lives. 

Our greatest strengths are also often our greatest weaknesses. One strength I have is that I am highly analytical. One weakness I have is that I'm extremely judgemental. There is two sides to every story. Finding a balance is difficult.  The playground bullies are going to find something we are good at, and twist it around until we can only see the bad. Satan does the exact same thing. He wants us to compare ourselves to others. He wants to make us insecure and hurt. He wants to make us miserable like he is. 

But we don't have to let him. 

We know what we are capable of. You know you can do wonderful and great things. I know I can too. Most people aren't going to try and stop us. I don't know why that seems to be such a big secret. Most of the people who are close to us are going to encourage us. They can see our strengths too. They know what we are capable of and want to help us. These are the kind of people you should hold onto. These are the kind of people who believe in you and want you to succeed. They are sad when we are hard on ourselves. They know we can be amazing. Deep down we know it too. These people are our cheerleaders. Everyone needs cheerleaders. Everyone needs friends. We need people who will help dream big and set goals. We need people who will stand by us even when we don't deserve it. Not only do we need these cheerleaders  in our lives, but we need to be these cheerleaders in other people's lives. 

Set a goal. Do something great and help someone else do something great too. Stop seeing people as more than people. Stop seeing yourself only for your flaws. 

Change your perspective and your perspective will start to change you. 

And let me know if you ever need a friend to cheer you on.