You're Not Special

by Meghan Rienks

  6. Pimp out your bag.

  Mary Poppins invented having your shit together. She was the OG of together shit. I’m not suggesting you need a tote bag that possesses magical powers. Just don’t leave the house without a Tide to Go pen and some breath mints. You can thank me later.

  7. Read one piece of news a day.

  It cannot have anything to do with the following: J.Lo’s abs, a cat meme, or anything close to resembling a ranking of Mary-Kate and Ashley’s movies in order of greatness (number one is Billboard Dad, duh). While I wish I could sit here and tell you that I drink my morning tea while actively absorbing the latest world news on CNN, I don’t. My morning ritual involves watching Ina Garten gush over good olive oil and counting how many times she says Jeffrey’s name. I’m a realist. I don’t expect you to be riveted by this evening’s forecast. Instead of giving up entirely, scan the New York Times home page for one story that requires minimal effort to understand. Memorize it and bring it up in conversation. Just hope nobody else read the same one, because chances are you have no real insight on it. Hey, fake it till you make it, right?

  8. Use a daily planner.

  Now, if you actually use the planner, you’re beyond just creating the illusion that your life is organized; you’re actually getting your shit together! But let’s take this one step at a time. Having a planner strategically pop out of your Everlane bag gives the signal to people around you that you meal prep, attend spin classes thrice weekly, and always know when you’re going to run out of organic almond milk.

  9. Wash your car.

  Or leave it outside in the rain. Or drive past a Jonas Brothers concert and let the tears of their adoring fans (I will be one of them) wash the dirt and grime off your mom’s Toyota Camry, which you’ve been passing off as your own since you got your permit. There is nothing sexier than a clean car (or a car at all; my standards are low). I don’t care if you bought your car on Craigslist or if it cost more than getting your master’s degree. It should come clean like a Hilary Duff song.

  10. If all else fails, lie.

  Reference the yoga retreat you went on where you took a vow of silence for three days and consumed nothing but wheatgrass and clay. Talk about how life changing the documentary about paper you just watched was. Just don’t say it blatantly, because nothing says “Hey, I don’t have my shit together” like saying “Hey, I have my shit together.”

  chapter 14 confidence and insecurities

  I hate to break it to you, but no Instagram filter is going to make you look like Karlie Kloss—and that’s okay. It took me twenty-five years to realize that I will never be 100 percent confident in every aspect of my life. It also took me twenty-six years to realize that that’s normal. In all my years of faking it, I’ve actually come to the conclusion that pretending to feel great about yourself is the quickest way to actually feel it.

  If you go to my Instagram account any day of the week, you’re bound to see an aesthetically pleasing feed (if I do say so myself). More likely than not it’s composed of palm trees, baked goods, and selfies. Now, when you see somebody flood their own timeline with pictures of themselves, it’s natural to assume that they like their appearance. How surprised would you be to learn that although there are over 400 videos of me and over 2,500 Instagram pictures of me on the internet, the truth of the matter is that I am not totally confident in my looks.

  I grew up in a time before smartphones. My childhood was documented on film cameras, and we communicated solely on landlines (a blow to my already nonexistent dating life). Despite the lack of instant gratification and anonymity that social media offers, I was not immune to comparing myself to others. For the first few years of my life, I was confident, because I was, like, five and blissfully unaware of anything but Barbies. The first memory I have of wishing I had something belonging to somebody else was in fourth grade. We did the play Annie and I was cast as Duffy, the “biggest” of the orphans. My friend Nikki got cast as Molly. Not only did she have a solo, but she was described as tiny and cute, fitting for the petite and adorable Nikki. I remember this aching feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched the older kids coddle her and gush over how small she was. In that moment I decided that I hated my height. I hated how big my feet were, and I hated that I had to wear a bra before the rest of my classmates. I wanted to be small and cute like Nikki.

  The day of my fifth-grade graduation, my mom asked me if I was sure that I wanted to wear a bikini on the class trip to the beach because “a one-piece might be more flattering.” This comment came about two weeks after I came home from school crying because a boy in my class called me fat. To which my mom’s response was that I was going to go through a growth spurt and I wouldn’t be chunky forever. I couldn’t tell you what my favorite color was at that age, or what I got for Christmas that year, but that exact moment is still burned into my brain twelve years later. As I got ready for the beach, I stared at the one-piece bathing suit my mom laid out on my bed. Before I could second-guess myself, I grabbed the Hawaiian-print bikini from my drawer, tossed it into my backpack, and left those fat comments with the one-piece. I spent the day doing cartwheels in the sand, showing off my swimming skills, and eating Popsicles until my lips turned blue. I have no memories of sucking my stomach in or hiding my body underneath a towel—not because I willed those thoughts out of my head, but because I’ve willed myself to forget them since.

  Middle school was fresh and new and I was ready to leave all my insecurities behind. I was so sick and tired of feeling secondary to my friends, and jealousy green was just not a good color for me. On the first day of sixth grade, I packed my pink messenger bag, threw on a tiara, and let my parents drop me off right in front of the school. I walked into that place like I owned it. I spoke up in class, I cracked jokes, I poked fun at myself, and I made friends. Inside I was screaming with pure terror, but on the outside I embodied that confidence I always wished I had. As we played the standard getting-to-know-you and icebreaker games, we were asked to anonymously compliment our classmates. As I read the sheets of paper in my lap, it was overwhelmingly flooded with words like “confident,” “funny,” and “unique.” I was floored. My ruse had worked! From that moment on, I realized I could just fake that confidence, and that false reality rang true in the minds of others. Also, let’s be real, “unique” was an insult, but what the hell did I know.

  Here’s the thing nobody will admit: we’re all faking it. Not a single person on this earth is happy with themselves 100 percent of the time. It’s just not possible. As you envy the most popular girl in school and her effortless ability to be “cool,” I guarantee that under all of that her knees are shaking. I promise you that even supermodels who get told on a daily basis how enchantingly beautiful they are can spew off a list of their own flaws at the drop of a hat. This idea that you would be happier if you had something that somebody else has, or looked a certain way like somebody else does, is total bullshit. You could look at the prettiest person in the world and you’d never be able to comprehend how they could dislike what they see in the mirror. You are the only person who lives in your mind and in your skin. You spend hundreds of thousands of hours with yourself until the day you die. You can be your own harshest critic or your own biggest fan. It’s your call.

  Girls are programmed to be great at faking it (dirty joke implied). With the help of push-up bras, Sex and the City marathons, and lip liner, we can get away with pretty much anything. The secret is in the silence and the unwavering conviction. I spent the rest of middle school surrounded by the mystic allure that I was brimming with self-assuredness. The trick was that I never dropped the act. I was confident presenting in class. I was confident performing in school plays. I was confident flirting with boys, and I was confident dancing alone. I lived that lie until slowly but surely that lie got smaller, and it got quieter, and I forgot that I was lying. I got so used to pretending that it became instinct. I no longer felt that I was creating a facade. I just got so used to living
in that reality that it became my reality. But here’s the kicker: I wasn’t confident. I just thought I was, and that’s the next best thing.

  I’m not advising you to wear a tiara to work (if you do, please send me a picture), but I am asking you to just take one human-sized step in that direction.

  5 steps to being more confident

  1. Stop shit-talking yourself. And stop letting your friends shit-talk themselves. Remember that scene in Mean Girls where they’re standing in front of a mirror, picking out their flaws? How uncomfortable is it when you hear somebody talk about how much they hate their thighs when you’d legitimately body snatch for them? Really annoying, right? So don’t be that person. I think we all see ourselves differently; the person you see in the mirror isn’t necessarily the same person that the rest of the world sees. It’s like colors: the blue I know might be different from the blue in your mind, but each of those realities only exist for ourselves. Who does it help when you say that you hate your arms or how you wish you had a thigh gap? What do those statements accomplish other than tearing down yourself and anyone in the vicinity of those remarks? We all want what we don’t have, the grass is always greener on the other side, and everybody’s butt looks better to us than it does to them.

  2. Stop normalizing the routine of complaining about things you have no intention of changing. I’m not going to sit here and tell you to love your “flaws” when I got a nose job. I mean, it turned out I needed one medically, but you best believe that I sauntered into Dr. Vartanian’s office because I decided the days of my nose being compared to a butt crack were over. If you can’t live with something, then by all means make a change! It’s your life; you’re the only one who has to live it. I don’t preach much, but I do stand behind the belief that the only right way to live is to live for yourself. If you don’t hate it enough to change it, then you need to change the narrative. If it’s something you’re going to live with, you have to learn how to neutralize your feelings toward it.

  3. Stop waiting for the moment confidence “kicks in.” There is this misconception that once you reach a certain goal or milestone, your unwavering confidence will automatically kick in and suddenly you’ll start to feel amazing about yourself. I hate to break it to you, but that, my friends, is a myth. Putting blame on life events and relinquishing the power of your own happiness to external variables is a never-ending cycle. There will always be something or somebody to wait for. No relationship, dress size, job title, bank account, or number on a scale will ever be enough. The only thing you need to change is your mindset. If you’re living your life for tomorrows, you’re wasting all of your todays.

  4. Create a routine that makes you feel like Beyoncé. I’m not kidding. Find a song that would be your entrance music in a teen movie. For me that song is “Boss-Ass Bitch.” You’re more than welcome to steal my song, because I’m pretty sure it’s impossible not to feel like a boss-ass bitch as you scream the lyrics and pop your (nonexistent, in my case) ass. Have a go-to outfit that you feel really great in—something that’s not only physically comfortable but that makes you feel like you. Same goes for your hair/makeup look. Hammer down one specific look that makes you want to take ten thousand Snapchats with the puppy dog filter. Have this routine in your back pocket for spontaneous dates, job interviews, and random moments of self-doubt.

  5. Draw the line. If you’re spending forty-five minutes scrolling through pictures of heavily Photoshopped Victoria’s Secret models, close your laptop and walk away. Know your triggers and avoid them like UTIs. Participating in an activity that you know is bringing you down is like sprinkling salt on a paper cut. Dumb. Like, really, really dumb. And you don’t want to be dumb.

  So fake it until you make it. Toss your hair in a sassy Ariana Grande ponytail, throw your shoulders back, strap on some heels, and walk like Tyra Banks is watching.

  Confidence isn’t about what you look like. Confidence is a mindset, an illusion, and completely and utterly attainable.

  chapter 15 self-love

  Let me get this out of the way: I am not against self-love. I don’t think we should all be self-loathing, self-pitying, and detrimentally introspective beings. But I also don’t sip that motivational Kool-Aid. Before you shank me in my chakras with your sage, let me explain.

  You’ve probably caught on that I’ve been a pretty insecure person for as long as I can remember. I’m not proud of that fact, but it is what it is. I don’t know if I believe that my deep-rooted confidence issues were something I was born with or the result of how I was brought up, but—whatever the reason—the issue is still there. My struggles with self-esteem have nothing to do with the world around me and everything to do with myself. Maybe you’re reading this and wondering what on earth I had to be insecure about, or maybe you can count enough reasons to rival Veruca Salt’s Christmas list. Regardless of whether you think my insecurities are well deserved, I cannot deny their existence.

  There are just some things I don’t like about myself no matter how hard I try to like them. I hate my front teeth. They’re too big and they protrude far past my bottom ones. I hate my arms; I have stubborn eczema all over them and no matter the season I’d rather be in sleeves. I hate my feet. They’re flat, ugly, and each is about as wide as my shoulders. I hate those things about myself. I can’t change the size of my feet, according to my doctor my eczema is about as under control as it’ll ever be, and the only fix for my teeth would be adult braces or tuition-priced porcelain veneers. I am never going to love those things about myself. I am not going to wake up one day and rub my hands across my bumpy, reptilian skin and light up with joy. As I struggle to squeeze my foot into the largest size the Nordstrom sale has to offer, I will not be beaming with excitement as I notice they make my feet resemble cross-country skis. I am not going to love every single part of myself all the time. And that’s okay.

  One of my major gripes with the concept of self-love is the unrealistic expectations that are involved. We’re instructed to love our flaws. I don’t know about you, but I’m not the biggest fan of my large pores. I could honestly do without them. Does my dislike and disdain for a part of myself make me a vain and horribly self-indulgent person? No. Does it make me human? Yes. I don’t expect you to transform your darkest feelings about yourself into positive mantras. That’s not realistic.

  Don’t expect to love yourself and your life 100 percent of the time. Or even 75 percent of the time. I think some days you’re gonna feel your look more than others. Some days you’ll look in the mirror and wish you saw someone else staring back. That doesn’t make you a superficial person. Instead of pounding the concept over everyone’s head that they should be so jazzed about their insecurities, how about we start treating our “flaws” more like high-maintenance poodles that sometimes need a bit more attention? You don’t need to find your blackheads beautiful. Negative thoughts are a part of life, they’re temporary, and they’re not crippling. Instructing someone to not just accept but love their flaws is daunting. You don’t need to love them, you need to live with them. I think setting the bar too high doesn’t always inspire; rather, it turns people off from it as something unachievable. Maybe if my role models had opened up about their own insecurities and how it’s perfectly normal and attainable to coexist with them, I’d have been a little less obsessive.

  Sometimes self-love takes form in acceptance, sometimes it takes form in neutrality, and sometimes it takes form in change. If I had been told that I needed to love my life regardless of the circumstances, I would never be where I am today. If I had not let myself hate college, I wouldn’t have thrown myself into work, moved to Los Angeles, and ultimately made my dreams a reality. If I had thought I needed to love my life, I would have remained at school, denied my misery, and embarked on a mundane and unfulfilled life. That desire to change and grow led me through a series of choices I made to ultimately value myself more than ever. It was self-preservation, and once I made it out the other side, it looked a lot like self-lo
ve.

  You are the only person in your skin (I hope), and you are the only person inside your mind, body, and soul. You are numero uno. You are the head honcho. You are the captain of your own ship and you are the Celine Dion of your Vegas. You are the only one whose opinion of yourself matters. So do what makes you happy. Will dyeing your hair hot pink make you happy? Then go for it. I don’t care what society says about how “shallow” it is to change your appearance; if it makes you happy, that’s all that matters. While to some people getting plastic surgery might seem like the ultimate display of insecurity, for me it was quite the opposite. Getting a nose job was my proclamation that I was taking my happiness into my own hands. I was making a decision to do something that I knew would boost my confidence, make me feel better about myself, and finally put that repulsion to rest. I spent nearly my whole life hating my nose. If ultimate self-love were entirely attainable for me, I would never have gotten my rhinoplasty and I would have saved a hefty chunk of change. I don’t think self-love is bullshit and I don’t even think it’s necessarily impossible. I think it’s important for us to value and treasure ourselves, but I also believe there is no right way to do that. I believe that some days you might love yourself more than others, and if you are truly unhappy with something in your life, you have every right to change it.