Blog #1 - Miss America

At first glance, I couldn’t tell exactly where the passage was going; however, the more I read, the more I felt I could relate to and understand. This is a subject that I usually find myself being a hypocrite about. The definition of perfect has been held way too high above us since we were younger. It’s a standard held so high that we felt we could never reach it, well at least most of us. Whether it be weight or height or hair color, the time that could have been spent doing productive things or having fun was spent worrying about things that have no real effect on the world. When I was in 3rd grade, I was involved in a small incident that left me with problems with my smile that I would have for the rest of my life. It took over my life to the point where I didn't even focus on any other flaws that most people could point out because I was so focused on the one thing that most people were blind to. I let an image of perfection I had for myself get in my way because I saw other people with "perfect" smiles and thought that if i didn't look like that, I looked wrong. I knew I wasn't "perfect" but I just wanted to be happy with myself, as most people do. I wasn't letting myself reach the happiness I deserved because an invisible barrier of hopeful perfection and acceptance was in the way. I got my own image of perfection from tv and social media, just as the author did and I was stuck in a hole that I would never be able to get out of. This seems to be the case for most people and it's disgusting because this standard comes from the enormously powerful influence that books, television, and social media have on people, especially adolescents, and how they think about themselves and others. They watch or read something that then becomes a image of how life must go in their mind. I feel that even though the standard has definitely not disappeared since we were younger, it has dissolved a bit. Slowly we have become mature enough to realize that the standards of perfection and popularity are meaningless. In middle and high school they give you a feeling of acceptance or a place to belong if you fit the standard and everyone else is on the outside, but in real life it doesn't completely work like that. Why is there such a strong need to praise other people? I understand looking up to someone or liking who they are but you can't be someone else so believing that who they are is the only acceptable way to be will only end in someone mentally hurting themselves and being stuck to something meaningless. I felt a strong connection to the subject of wanting to be like someone or wanting to be perfect because of something seen in a book or tv show in the Miss America piece.