To those feeling down - why do you weep?

Everybody has or has had insecurities in their lives. There is no soul who was content from the moment he slipped out from his mother's womb to the day he lay buried beneath the ground, flowers upon his grave, tombstone carved to perfection. I was born with imperfections. So were you, and so was everybody else to roam this Earth, except for Jesus maybe, but perhaps he didn't like his beard, I don't know.

Nonetheless, we, the female victims of menstrual cycles and endless expectations, all spend or have spent time, I believe, before the mirror. We may survey ourselves a little too critically, or perhaps angle our bodies a little to the left, a little to the right, wondering if maybe I look better from the side, or not at all. Perhaps we send anguished stares at our report cards at the end of semesters, cursing the inferiority of our mental capabilities. Perhaps on a day as normal as any other we lock ourselves in our rooms, adamant on solitary confinement, as we cry our eyes out, resenting, envying and wanting nothing more than something a million miles away, or just barely out of our grasp.

But then sometimes we wonder if this is all necessary. Life is short; don't make it shorter. If we have flaws we are unhappy over, we should fix them, and if we are unable to, we should learn to appreciate them. You can't slice off the edges of your nose, for example, and sculpt it to the shape you desire. You can't gain an unimaginable level of mathematical prowess overnight. You can't snap your fingers and poof yourself a slim body in one second.

Things take time, and if they are doomed to be forever unchangeable, then good for you! Condemnations, or so we say, teach us that not everything comes easily, and not to take gifts for granted. The straight A's student might have monstrous armpit hair she absolutely can't deal with. The hot girl in her smoking bikini at the beach might be struggling to pass her classes, or get the attention of the boy she fancies, who, so to say, might prefer girls who just have a sweet smile and a great sense of humour. There are many things we don't quite understand yet, and hence the phrase don't jump to conclusions.

If you think about it, there are countless opportunities in this world, and we haven't lived half our lives to understand or experience them. Even amongst the aged and wrinkled, not many can profess that they have truly experienced all that they can. Why stop where you are? There are books and poems aplenty to read -

people to meet,

sights to see -

places to visit,

cities to roam,

cultures to see,

food to eat,

hot drinks to hold, between cold palms,

and last but not least, things to love.

So why must we focus on the negatives? It's okay to be down, but when the roller coaster slopes, you know it'll be back up again. It decides on whether you want to look fretfully at the ground, anxious about falling, or to yell to your heart's content, ecstatic and eyes fixed on the sky above.

Let me ask again. Why do you weep?