Berlin Lee shares how she is rejecting makeover trends to focus on what’s more important to her.
In middle school, all anyone could talk about was “glowing up.” Glowing up meant a complete makeover in order to achieve your ideal self. I’ve been reminded of this as similar trends have spread on the internet. As a young girl, I was often insecure about how I looked. I fell for the idea that I could change and improve if I succeeded in this “glow up” process.
I remember sitting by a pool on summer vacation, the year before seventh grade, making a to-do list of everything I had to do before the school year to “glow up.” Among the to-do list items were getting new clothes and piercing my ears. As I prepare to go to college next year, I’m tempted to use this opportunity for another makeover. New beginnings are often seen as ways to shed your past self and be reborn. The saying “New year, new me” comes to mind. Instead of a celebration, aging has become an opportunity to be made over.
Among the many problems of this trend is how the pre-makeover self is treated. This process makes you reject and dislike who you are in the name of self-improvement. You find faults in your current self and then try to distance yourself as much as possible. But as I get ready college and become an adult, many of my goals are actually more of a return. I realize I want to become more like who I was in middle school.
This includes reading for fun and spending less time on social media. I want to devote myself to my hobbies. I can see who I am and was, within the person I want to be. Despite these popular trends saying otherwise, I’ve learned to stop treating myself like a problem to be solved. With a Perspective, I’m Berlin Lee.