Act your age. Don't be so serious. Work harder. Why don't you ever take time for yourself? Lose weight. Learn to love your body. Be nicer. Stop being such a pushover.
Be yourself, but do it only with our approval.
No matter what you do or how you present yourself, you are going to have more critics than admirers.
And if you are like me, you are your "own worst critic" (and now I'm judging myself for using such a glaring cliché, ugghhh).
The truth is that no one is perfect (another cliché-why, Sara, why?!), including you. Finding balance between maturity and humor, work and play, conformity and open-mindedness, self-sacrifice and healthy narcissism, is impossible.
We all know that we should stop judging ourselves and others, but this knowledge doesn't dwindle our judgment. It just makes us judge ourselves and others for being judgmental.
One thing that might help you learn to be more accepting of people's faults (including your own) is to realize that there are always reasons for behaviors, habits, and thought patterns.
An intriguing thing that I realized today is that the reason for both our sins and our good deeds is the same: with both vice and virtue, we are seeking positive emotion and fleeing negative emotion. I overeat for the same reason why I write novels-because it feels good. And I avoid pushing myself into new situations (where I might, heaven forbid!, learn something) for the same reason why I avoid keeping a hungry lion for a pet-because it's scary.
We cannot help it; it is natural to chase after pleasure and run away from pain. We can, however, learn discipline, the art of paying for later pleasure with current pain. But it must be acknowledged that discipline is easier for some people to master than others (because the act of exercising discipline is inherently pleasurable for some people, but not for others!).
If you are trying to learn self-acceptance like me, perhaps this is something to remember. Rather than judging ourselves for our shortcomings, we should acknowledge where they came from and gently work towards remedying them.
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