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Why is it important to accept your flaws? How does hiding your flaws eat away at your chance of finding happiness?
No matter how hard you try, you’re never going to be perfect. We all have our flaws and insecurities, and that’s OK. What’s not OK is being preoccupied with hiding them in an effort to project a false image of yourself to gain social approval.
Here’s why it’s important to accept your flaws and embrace who you are, as flawed as you may be.
Culture of Scarcity
We all have flaws and weaknesses. Some we can work to improve, while others may stay with us forever, and that’s OK—we are all human after all. However, we live in a culture that makes it difficult to accept ourselves the way we are because its main focus is on our inadequacies.
According to Brené Brown, in such a culture—a “culture of scarcity”—everyone is preoccupied with what they lack. As a way of control, we hold up an idealized image of ourselves, our lives, our days (in other words, Instagram-worthy), and when reality doesn’t hold up, we experience suffering. From a cultural standpoint, this creates problematic results:
Manifestation #1: Shame
Shame is characterized by fear of not being worthy of love, connection, or belonging. In other words, it’s the internalized manifestation of “never enough” culture.
For example, sometimes one generation will shame another generation for their mistakes or perceived inadequacies. Consider the way the “Boomer” generation sees the “Millennial” generation as not being responsible or hard working enough (or vice versa, with Millennials viewing Boomers as not being flexible or adaptable enough).
Manifestation #2: Disengagement
Disengagement is lack of connection, whether it be a lack of willingness to connect, or an inability to connect. It is a type of burnout that arises from unsuccessfully seeking meaningful presence within a culture that is profoundly focused on what is not present.
For example, students and teachers alike struggle to meaningfully connect with one another, whether it be due to large class sizes that don’t allow for personal engagement or material taught for the purpose of passing a standardized test.
Manifestation #3: Comparison
To compare is to rank someone or something against another, and allow that ranking to determine value. Scarcity culture breeds comparison, because everyone is always comparing what they have (or lack) to what others have (or lack), whether that be material or emotional.
For example, you are bombarded on a daily basis with messages and images that encourage you to compare who you are, and what you have with that of others. Consider the woman who is obsessed with fixing her physical imperfections because she is comparing herself to pictures of women in magazines.
Accepting Yourself Wholly and Unconditionally
Living in a culture where everyone is preoccupied with their inadequacies, accepting yourself wholly and unconditionally—including your flaws and insecurities—is especially difficult. However, it’s important to accept all aspects of yourself, no matter how much you don’t like them—selective self-acceptance only exaggerates the focus on your flaws and makes it harder to be happy with yourself as you are.
For example, you might wish that you felt more confident interacting with others. Not accepting this part of yourself makes you feel more self-conscious about how confident you appear—you judge yourself according to how well you perform in individual interactions. After confident interactions, you feel good about yourself and you feel happy. After unconfident interactions, you feel bad about yourself, uncomfortable about this part of yourself, and unhappy. This leads you to conclude that your unconfidence is the cause of your unhappiness and it impels you to reject this aspect of yourself—for example, by projecting a false image of confidence.
On the other hand, unconditional self-acceptance keeps your self-judgment consistent regardless of how confident you feel in each interaction. You’ve already accepted yourself, so you don’t look to others to decide how you should feel about yourself. As a result, you don’t feel impelled to mask any aspects of yourself and find it easier to maintain a feeling of happiness regardless of your flaws or what others might think of you.
Additionally, being able to accept your flaws is important because you can only change what you accept. You can only find the motivation to change only when you accept the reality you dislike. For example, you’ll only act to improve your self-esteem if you accept that you have low self-esteem. If you deny that you have low self-esteem, why would you try to change it?
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