The ugly duckling

 

 I was in senior five when I first read the story of the ugly duckling and I really loved it. It captured my attention and there was surely something attractive about it but I was not sure of what it was. Later on, I discovered that I was to use it one day. Here I am now talking to you dear reader, hoping that through this your spirit will get uplifted.

Mother and father ducks had four beautiful ducklings and one adopted ugly duckling. That poor little thing was so ugly that no one wished to talk to him. Other ducklings were yellow while the ugly one was a bit brown. He was totally different from them and they were so unkind towards him. One day he decided to fly away from home hoping to find peace but everywhere he goes he was rejected due to the fact that he was ugly and different. Poor duck! To cut the story short, the ugly duckling finally found a place to live near a beautiful lake where he was to spend time alone. Then after some days on one fine morning, the ugly little duckling decided to look at his reflection in water and to his surprise, he found out that he was not a duck. He was a swan! A beautiful white swan mama mia!

Nowadays, society has its norms and criteria against which it defines what the ideal beauty and success should be. You will see some people bullying others and body shaming them. They be like look at your face, belly, height, cheeks, and so on. They laugh at beardless men; they laugh at fat women. There are a lot of motivational “wake up before 5:00 am “speakers and so on. What I want to say right now is this: beauty is an opinion, life has to be lived according to one’s terms and no one should dare compare you to anyone else.  Do not even insult yourself by comparing yourself to others for you are unique and there is surely beauty within. Take your time alone to admire yourself, your strengths, weaknesses and everything that makes you you.  Do not listen to your insecurities for they do nothing but draining your energy. Accept who you are, work for what you want and sooner or later, you will discover that being different isn’t actually a bad thing.