We have this problem today; we don’t like ourselves. We pick apart the very fabric of our souls and our bodies, bit by bit until at last we are left with nothing. Shells of our former selves. Who told us we were not good enough? Not smart enough? Not beautiful enough? Not kind enough? Not tough enough? Not white enough? Not masculine enough? Not feminine enough? Not competitive enough? Not successful enough? What made us look at ourselves in a different light?

Nearly every beautiful woman I meet today is riddled with insecurities based around a benchmark of unattainability. Men are victims of this too. This sad disease of insecurity, it is ruining us. It is ruining the world. If we didn’t set impossible goals for ourselves and each other I am pretty sure there would be a lot less violence, rape, anorexia, abuse, cheating, deforestation, pollution, animal abuse, bulimia, self doubt, suicide, depression, murder, racism and sexism. If 6 ft Amazonian women with washboards for stomachs and western facial features weren’t the ideal of beautiful, I’m pretty sure there would be a lot less eating disorders and a lot less women and men with distorted visions of themselves. I think if money were not the goal and the means of obtaining food and shelter for the majority of us there would be a lot less greed, poverty and disparity. If we stopped making everything a commodity, there would be a lot less exploitation of humans and the earth. If we stopped trying to force life to be somewhere we are going (where are you going in this life?) but instead something that we are already being-living, then we wouldn’t be working 60 hour work weeks trying to make life worthwhile through the amount of a bank account. We live in a sad reality; most of us need money to live, to eat, to clothe ourselves, to build homes, to travel, to explore but we don’t need as much as we think we do and in working together we can change the system. Life should be an even balance. And money should not be the goal.

Moreover, we are taught to mask our feelings. Don’t be over emotional. Don’t cry. Don’t feel sad. Don’t let depression creep in but instead take a million medications; put a huge band aid on melancholy. A band aid of fake happiness. Instead of feeling your way through the depression and understanding it, pretend it’s not there. It doesn’t exist. Feeling nothing is better than feeling something if that something is sadness. But I think it’s important to understand depression, not becoming it but knowing it. Because if we don’t understand it, we will never defeat it and in losing that battle, the depression will never disappear and you will slowly fade away. Instead own your feelings, understand why you are feeling them and see how you could solve them and rise above them. Own all of yourself not just parts.

We need to learn how to make peace with our anger, our loneliness, our wounds. We need to learn how to love ourselves again. Setting our own healthy standards for ourselves. There is no point in not liking who you are, it is nothing but a waste of your life, of your time here. Beauty is in everyone and in everything we just have to open our eyes to it. So, fight your way through the obstacles and come out on the other end renewed and full of self satisfaction. A happy person is a happy relationship which in turn is a happy community and a happy community is a happy world.

It was the brightly coloured, oddly patterned carpet highlighted by blue lights.

A strange place of love lost, loneliness and faded memories set against 90’s interior.

The washed up middle aged musician trying to please the aged customers

with golden oldies, a guitar and a dying dream.

It was the sound of the pokies and the way they lined the foyer

like neon soldiers, taking grandma’s money in return for company.