I WAS GOOD ENOUGH

I once knew a guy.
This guy told me I should dye my hair black.
This guy told me I should wear makeup.
This guy made me feel insecure.
There are a thousand billion (slight exaggeration) people out there like this. This is discouraging. There are a lot of idiots in the world.
But the thing is, they don't matter.
If what they're saying is Hi! I don't like your face... go change it, then they're just appearance-obsessed jerks. What I never told that guy, but I wish I had (I was ten. I didn't know how to stand up for myself) was that my face was fine. My hair was fine. If he had a problem with it, then he had some issues.
These are the people that judge on the universal standard of beauty. People say that beauty is the eye of the beholder. Jeesh, people. Ever heard of inner-beauty?
If you disregard inner-beauty, then you're doing something unfortunate. This is called objectifying. This means that you only like someone because of how they look. And this is a horrible way to be.
If you see someone's inner-beauty, you'll see their outer-beauty, too. Or outer-handsomeness. I, personally, don't feel as if there's a difference between outer-beauty and outer-handsomeness, but whatever.
This guy told me I wasn't good enough.
My ten-year-old self believed him.
My ten-year-old self tried not to care that his ten-year-old self made such a big deal out of this. How, essentially, I lacked outer-beauty.
My older self is way, way over it.
My older self has decided that if anyone ever says anything like that to her again, she is going to lecture him/her. Or do something about it, at least.
My older self has tried stopped caring what people say about her.
My older self has mostly succeeded.
My older self wants to tell the world that people like that guy I knew are just... uninsightful.
My older self is doing that right now.
I want to tell him that nothing he says can make me feel that I am not good enough, as a person. I want to tell him that I'm just fine the way I am. I want to tell him that he's overly judgmental.
He was never good at not getting his way, or sparing other people's feelings.
Don't look at me and tell me I'm not good enough.
Don't look at anyone and tell them they're not good enough.
This usually happens to females. Because we have more standards to live up to? Because we have more people telling us what we should be.
And they're lying.
We should be whatever the heck we want to be.
They slip it into our every day lives, sometimes so discreetly we don't see it, but sometimes so glaringly obviously that we have to.
I'm not saying this doesn't happen to males, because it does. Just not as much, because, suckishly, male privilege still lives.
50/50.
We want this 50/50.
But we're still at, like, 60/40.
55/45.
Not 50/50.
Not yet...
It's frowned upon when anyone calls anyone not good enough, straight up.
But people do it every day. They do it less obviously, but they do it. And society does it. And government does it.
Be whatever the heck you want to be.