When I was younger I loved playing with dolls. I spent hours playing house and taking care of my precious dolls, Popsicle and Vacuum. (Yeah, don’t judge… I wasn’t the most creative when it came to naming my toys). I really wasn’t much of a Barbie girl, which could have something to do with the Guillotine Barbie incident that my older brother orchestrated, but I loved my dolls.
This week as I was thinking about my carefree days as a kid, I realized that the toys I’d played with as a child had an important lesson to teach.
My cabbage patch doll didn’t have the same body type, fancy clothes, or luscious hair as Barbie; but I loved her. She was the perfect size to snuggle with, and she served her purpose perfectly of being the baby whenever I played house. Just as Popsicle was the perfect playmate for me, Barbie was the perfect playmate for my younger sister, Camille. Barbie wasn’t a good option for something to cuddle with, but she was just right when it came to being Ken’s friend, and driving that sweet, sweet Barbie Jeep around.
These two different toys served their purposes perfectly. Now, I would have never been happy with Popsicle, if I was expecting her to be a Barbie; and Camille would have never been happy with her Barbie if she was expecting Barbie to be more like a Cabbage Patch Doll.
It seems ridiculous expecting a Barbie to be a Cabbage Patch Doll and vice versa, yet how often do we try to fit ourselves in a mold, when we would be happier and better off just being ourselves? We live in a society that is obsessed with physical appearance and tries to dictate what size we should be, how we should dress, how to style our hair, what our make-up should look like…. and ultimately who we should be. While we absolutely should strive to be our best, we should keep in mind that what’s best and works for someone else may not be what's best and works for us. So, instead of killing ourselves trying to be someone we’re not, we should focus on who we are, and work at becoming our better self instead of a mediocre someone else.
Looking over my life, it's easy to see I’ve wasted some of my precious time and energy wishing I was someone I’m not, when I could have spent that same amount of energy improving who I already am. From now on, I’m going to focus on being the best Clarissa I can be, instead of hoping to be a mediocre someone else. So here’s to being the best me, whoever that may be!