Question from Fern
Hey … So I am a very very insecure person. I’ve been called ugly plenty of times and it just frustrates me.
I’m insecure to the point that I feel like everyone who looks at me thinks I’m ugly. It keeps me from being myself. I get so irritated when someone is looking at me because I feel like they’re thinking, “Wow, she’s ugly.”
I know everyone is beautiful just the way they are but, honestly, I can’t follow that logic anymore. I can’t look at a guy and have a convo with him because I’m scared of how I look to him.
When I look in the mirror, all I see is an ugly person. All my flaws are sticking out at me.
I’m 15, and I know teens go through this but, I’m so insecure that it makes me shut down. I’m at the point that I really don’t know what to do.
Weezy
I know that society places a lot of attention on looks and on encouraging us to seek attention for our looks. I can’t reassure you by telling you how pretty you are because the beauty is … I can’t see you.
Let’s take a million steps back from Planet Earth and think about this question:
What if …
The truest challenge we face as humans is to look beyond appearances? What if the secret to life is right in front of our faces but we can’t see it because we are too distracted by our faces??!!
If an alien came to visit from another planet we would probably all look pretty “ugly” to that visitor. So, what qualities would he or she, or it, seek out in a friend? Probably honesty, kindness, creativity, thoughtfulness, compassion, integrity, etc. You can add to that list the qualities you most value in yourself.
It’s not only distance that provides us with perspective, it’s also time.
For instance, click here for a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi.
Click here for a photo of Mother Teresa.
Click here for a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt.
OK, sure. Gandhi was a bit of a nerd hottie but for the most part, these were not typically gorgeous people. But using the yardstick of greatness, they were exquisite.
Do we really know what Jesus looked like? We don’t, but we imagine him to be very handsome because his lessons are so beautiful.
An “ugly” person is someone who would call another person ugly. How you look is your packaging, and it’s a distraction. “Unbox” yourself so that you can go out and BE a beautiful person.
Oprah Winfrey introduced us to young poet and peacemaker, Mattie Stepanek. Listen to his message:
(OWN video)
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Question from Samantha
I could not get my ex to change his status on Twitter. It was saying that we were still together.
Anyways, it’s been quite some time now since we have spoken, and for some odd reason his Twitter password just came to me and when I tried it on the first attempt, it was the right password. I took our pictures down and anything that had to do with us being together.
Am I wrong for doing it? With the fact being that we haven’t spoken in months and I just logged on without his permission? I don’t think he should be mad about it because he should have changed it himself.
Weezy
Yes, you are wrong for doing that. We cannot control others, nor should we attempt to do so.
You get to write your own history every time you wake up and walk through your day. Your living truth is sufficient to melt his lies.
Yes, he should have changed his relationship status on Twitter, but breaking into his account and making changes just prolongs your involvement with him. It will have repercussions. That is not you moving forward. That is you reaching back.
You will always be only one half of any relationship. You get to be responsible for your own actions and integrity.
Social media and the imprint it creates may be tempting us to amend or edit our image. That will never be possible. We all know too many people with computers! Those posts turned him into a liar. That was bad. You allowed them to turn you into a thief. That is worse.
Let’s imagine that it’s 1950 and you know that your ex is writing in his journal every night about the two of you still being together and that his sister is reading those entries. Let’s say that you still have a key to his house. Would it be OK for you to unlock his door when nobody is home, go up to his room and burn his journal? It would not.
Do not allow lies to turn you into a criminal. The truth has a very loud voice. Let it speak for you. Apologize for what you have done and then fix your gaze on the horizon and continue moving forward.
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Question from Cassie
Hi, Weezy! I have known my friend, Emily, since before kindergarten. Every time I attempt to sit with Emily on the bus, she declines it. This is so weird to me since we have been friends for so long.
How can I get her to stop declining my attempt to sit with her?
Weezy
You can’t. Stop asking.
She’s got her own agenda. Who knows what it is? She may be hoping to sit with some boy or something. I know it hurts a lot, but it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her.
Think of your life as a pathway, along which you will find a series of doors. You may find one door interesting and try to open it but it’s locked. So you knock, quietly at first and then more and more loudly and urgently. Then maybe you start to yell and you pound on the door and you kick the door. Then you cry and scream and wail, and finally you collapse in an exhausted heap in front of the door and you curl up into a ball sobbing.
At which point in this story should you have simply shrugged and moved on to the next door?
If you keep trying the same door, you will miss all of the other doors that may swing open for you the moment they see your sweet face. Keep walking up the aisle of that bus and up the pathway of your life. You just never know what or who lies beyond another doorway.
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Got a question for Weezy? Email her at news@noozhawk.com and it may be answered in a subsequent column.
— Louise Palanker is a co-founder of Premiere Radio Networks, the author of a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel called Journals, a comedian, a filmmaker (click here to view her documentary, Family Band: The Cowsills Story), a teacher and a mentor. She has a teen social network/IOS app and weekly video podcast called Journals, built around a philosophy of cyber kindness. She also teaches a free stand-up comedy class for teens at the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.