From the moment you’re born, your parents tell you that you are “the most beautiful girl in the world.” You believe them. Why? Well at that age parents are the world’s omniscient source of knowledge and truth. They literally know everything. It’s not until you grow older that you begin to think this isn’t the case.

Entering the “real world” full of social media outlets and sex-driven advertising is like poking a hole in a ship. All of the confidence and self-love your parents poured into you starts spilling out into the ocean, and insecurities flood in by the gallon. Once you realize your parent’s opinions aren’t the opinions of the societal whole, you begin to sink.

The body that you’ve always lived in, that you’ve always been entirely happy with, becomes a fleshy cage riddled with problems. It’s too big or too small, it’s too tall or too short, it’s too light or too dark. Your hair isn’t the right texture or color or length, your eyes aren’t big or small enough, they’re not the right color or right width apart. Your chest is too full or not full enough. Your hips are too prominent or not prominent enough. This new world you have entered only knows how to tear down rather than lift up. Why were you so anxious to grow up anyway?

Here’s where you made your mistake. I realize your parents don’t actually know everything, but they did get one or two things right. One of those things is this: you ARE the most beautiful girl in the world-- in their world, in your world, and in the world of that one true love that waits for you somewhere out there. When you read that magazine with the Amazonian model on the front, when you pass that store with the big-breasted blonde in the window, when you watch that movie starring Megan Fox, do not let their beauty make you question your own. Keep in mind that today’s societal perception of beauty is one of many that has past and even more that are to come.

The overall stereotype of beauty is ever-changing, but you are made the way you are for a reason; and for the most important people in your life, your beauty outshines that of the rest.