When I am bored, I often find myself scrolling through Instagram, looking at pictures of my friends and more times than not, I end up looking at my friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s picture from three years ago. When I get caught up in looking at so many pictures of people I do not even know I often find that I begin to compare myself to these strangers. While looking at some random girl, I’ll think to myself, I wish my hair was that voluminous, how is it humanly possible for her legs to look that good, I would give anything to have my teeth that white, and other similar thoughts. By the time I am done looking through all these images I am left feeling terrible about myself and as if nothing about me is attractive.

I know I am not the only one who has these self-denigrating thoughts when looking at beautiful people. While your confidence killer of choice may not be Instagram, you do not have to look far to find many images of extremely beautiful people. The media floods our computers, TV screens, and magazines with the images of what ideal beauty is, leaving those who do not measure up feeling like they are not worthy to consider themselves beautiful.

We should be able to see another person’s beauty without having it alter our opinion’s of ourselves. The quote, “comparison is the thief of joy” is far more accurate than we give it credit. Imagine if you had nobody to compare yourself to, would you think you are attractive? When we degrade ourselves, we often think of the ideal in our heads while doing so. Wishing our stomach was as flat as our best friend, or that our hair was as shiny as the celebrity on the cover of the magazine; but if we merely looked at just ourselves, we would see that we are far more beautiful than the distorted image we have in our heads of ourselves.

I once saw a Tumblr post from Tumblr user sscreams talking about comparing our beauty to others, it said “just because you don’t look like somebody who you think is attractive doesn’t mean you aren’t attractive. Flowers are pretty but so are Christmas lights and they look nothing alike.” Wow. Just reflect on that for a moment. There are multitudes of attractive characteristics a person can have with each one as different from the next. You may not look like that girl you hold in such high regards but that doesn’t mean you are not pretty. If we all looked the same then the world would be an incredibly boring place.

Ultimately we are all human and subject to fall into the entrapment of comparisons despite our best efforts. When we do, however, let’s remember that the image portrayed is not the whole story. We do not know how many tries it took to get the selfie just right, how many filters were applied, or even if some form of Photoshop was used. We also forget about what is inside. When you take that selfie people cannot see your compassion or humble spirit or much of your personality at all.

Your personality should be the most beautiful aspect of you, for beauty is fleeting and when you are 80 years old people will not want to spend time with you because you are beautiful, but rather because you are good company to have. If you feel as if you are not beautiful, try showing kindness, being polite, and laughing every once in a while. A beautiful personality will shine throughout a person and make their outer beauty more noticeable as well. Quit comparing yourself to other people and focus on the many wonderful qualities you already possess.