At 31, I am the woman 15 year old me knew I would become, that 18 year old me was jealous of, that 27 year old me never thought she would see, that 28 year old me gave up on, and that 29 year old me forgot about. Younger Kim was a lot nicer to herself, but that goes to show that growth is not linear. Sometimes you have to take more than a few steps back in order to take one step forward. Progression doesn’t always look like you think it should. 

BE KIND TO YOURSELF. In a world filled with hate, the best thing you can do is be kind to yourself. Be selfish, be alone, be emotional, be regular, be all the things people say you shouldn’t be. Why? Because then you can focus on being you. 

At 15, I was innocent and excited about the world before me. At 18, I started comparing myself to others. At 27, I had my heart broken. At 28, I was scared, and at 29, I became careless. The world and life had done their best to crush me and they almost won.

What saved me? Myself. Better yet, belief in myself. I know it sounds cliché, but you cannot be what you cannot see. And my vision had become extremely cloudy. I had to start with me. What was I consuming? What was I surrounded by? What was influencing me? What was I telling myself? And how was that manifesting?

I was consuming social media, surrounded by unrealistic beauty standards, influenced by society’s thoughts on my life, telling myself that I’m not where I should be personally or professionally, and I was manifesting self hate. To add insult to injury, I was aware. Aware that I was sabotaging myself, aware that I was contributing to this self loathing, and aware that I was completely able to stop at any time.

The common theme here is outside influences. Our culture revolves so much around what other people are doing, and why I can’t do what they are doing. And because I can’t do it, that somehow makes me less. We are entirely lost in followers, likes, and views. I need to do this or look like that to be liked or successful or worse, worth it.

I’m blessed to have grown up without social media. I got to experience my teens without a phone glued to my hand, and I know what it is to not be “on” 24/7. I have real friends and people in my life that I didn’t meet through a screen, and our interactions extend beyond an emoji or the double tap of a picture. Even so, it was effortless to get swept up in the fast moving world of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Often my parents will be telling me something that happened in the news or with the family and my response is, “yea, I know Facebook told me.”   

Social media has created incredible opportunities to stay connected, reconnect, be creative, and consume creativity but at what cost? Information dissemination can happen at lightning speeds through these various social platforms, which can be extremely hard to ignore. Before, we had to wait until high school and college reunions or rely on gossip to see who married who, had kids, successful jobs, divorced, baby mama/daddy drama, or lived up to their school superlatives or reputations. Now, snap your fingers and you have everything you want to know right on your phone. People you haven’t talked to in 15 years request to be your friend, and now you’ve opened this information portal into their lives. But here’s the thing about social media and people on social media; you only see what they want you to see.

The crucial mistake we make is believing the things we see on social media, which leads us down the rabbit hole of comparison, FOMO, and negativity. My online presence soon became overwhelming, you named the social platform, and I had a profile. I couldn’t make a move without checking my socials first or enjoy a moment without documenting it. I was no longer using these platforms for myself; I was using them for others. Who’s liking, commenting, and following? That was my only concern. Then is became who’s not liking, not commenting, and not following.

Social media was just an added layer to the societal pressures that everyone already feels. As a woman in society, when you reach a certain age, the “expectation” is to be working towards marriage and family. The pressure to find a husband and start a family comes at you from all angles. Friends start getting married, and families begin asking questions; you fend them off by convincing yourself that you’re focused on your education and then your career, but then the excuses become far and few in between. Single at a certain age for women is a death sentence or at least that’s what we’re led to believe. 

Then the biological clock starts to tick, and the ticking gets louder and louder as you near 35. Ah, 35 the magical age where medically, it’s all down hill from there. When did my self worth get relegated to the viability of my eggs? Now I’m failing at my function, but I can’t speak up and tell my truth, that I never wanted kids anyway. Gasp! A woman that doesn’t want kids! What’s wrong with you (I have literally been asked this)?

At some point you stop and assess because something has to be wrong, right? I checked all the boxes, and I’m still not where I’m supposed to be. If you have ever thought that, also ask yourself this: 1. Whose boxes were you checking? And 2. What yardstick are you using to measure “supposed to be”? Sometimes it’s gradual, and sometimes it hits you like a ton of bricks: the moment you realize the only person you need approval from, the only person you need to measure yourself by, and the only person you need to be living for, is you.

My ah-ha moment was both gradual and stunning. Gradual moments happened when I was would reconnect with people that knew me once. When I say knew me once, I mean they knew me in a moment, but I was definitely not that person anymore. I’ve had that confirmed to me several times, which confirmed the growth that I was ignoring. You see, growth is not linear, and it doesn’t come in the ways you expect it. I was not experiencing personal life events like marriages and births, but I was experiencing life events in other areas financially, educationally, career related, culturally, etc. My stunning moment came when I stopped to take stock of what the last few years looked like and how I arrived at this moment.

Some times it takes a different perspective to understand that my growth will not look like your growth or how people told me my growth should look. Maybe my starting line was in a different position than yours, and maybe I had more obstacles than you. Possibly more of my obstacles were internal and the length of my track a little longer. Whatever the case may be, comparison was getting me nowhere and I had to learn to run my race in my own time. Yes, there are people on the sidelines cheering me on, and there are people booing, but I get to choose what I let in and how I keep pushing forward.  

Self reflection is a powerful tool to pull yourself out of self loathing. Perspective is defined as the way that one looks at something. Adjust your lens, alter your viewpoint, and reshape your vision. Most importantly, leave everyone and everything else out of it. This life is about you and only you.