I was born and raised in Colombia and I learned english five year ago, in the US. There is something funny about my english voice. It has this little question marks at the end of every sentences, like I’m not sure of what I’m saying. I learned to talk like you are supposed to talk when you’re a 20 years old girl. When I talk in Spanish, I sound stronger and sure of myself, I even change my tone. That raised a lot of questions this week. It made me realize how similar is our behavior, our clothes, and even the way we sound when we speak in America. It is like there is a constant feeling that we all have to reach certain standards or we won’t be enough, we won’t be accepted. That there is somebody we should look up to. That explains why I bought the white sneakers, you know, She (insert any famous woman name here) has it. Even though I don't like to wash my shoes and I hate how dirty those white snickers get in no time. There is a constant thinking that being perfect will bring happiness, and those standards of perfection have been imposed on us without even letting us breathe.

Perfection has become the obsession of our society. It begins with the filter culture brought by Instagram and it goes on until stupid trends like the tight gap and “Kylie Jenner lips” challenge. Now, it is normal to look at the mirror and see anything but mistakes. We watch and criticize ourselves so hard for not being perfect that we become our worst enemies. Be perfect, don’t eat. Be perfect, buy this. Be perfect, look like this. Be perfect, sound like this. Be perfect, you’ll have this. Be perfect, don’t do that.

Sadly, I come to tell you that perfection is a lie. Specially the one established in this century. It was made to sell us useless things, to change our behavior to the convenience of someone, and to have a society so beaten down that can not stand up to demand the truth. So, we apply self flagellation in a mirror: we blame ourselves for not looking like Kendall or a Taylor’s Swift squad member. For not sounding like Kim. We blame ourselves because we don’t have what GiGi has or because we can’t relax in Greece for a weekend. We tell ourselves on different way that we aren’t enough, that we need more, that we need to be less like ourselves, more like them. We keep looking for something that does not really exist. Because even the Kardashians (or any hollywood star for that matter) need a whole glam team and countless surgeries to look like they look, and guess what? They still need marketing geniuses to get into our mind like the image of perfection we adore. Next time you think you need to be perfect, remember nobody is.

Nobody told us that it’s ok to feel. It is ok to be completely lost and angry. It is ok to ask ourselves what we want and what happiness really mean to us. It is ok not to like something or not to buy something because maybe you are working for what you really care about; or maybe you just don’t need it. That it is ok to make mistakes, to make things right. Not to look like somebody else. Not feel like it right now, or feel like it anytime. Somewhere, between the talk about perfection and the talk about needing useless things, we forgot we are humans. That perfection does not come in our DNA and It won’t lead us to happiness. We should be really able to be aware of everything around us, to be in charge of our own happiness. Unfortunately, happiness is also a lie, but we'll talk about it later.