Volume 65 December 2026-January 2026 : Readers Diary

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Growing up, I defined beauty as a person`s outer looks, their appearance or the beautiful clothes they wore. As time went by, I would hear beauty pageants defining beauty as “what is skin deep, not outside”. I have always been wrong all these years because my own definition of beauty limited me to expressing what I really felt about a lot of things.

“I wanted to be confident, wanted to stand out tall and give my own opinion but I couldn`t, because of the little voices which would whisper to me “You can`t! You are a coward or not worth it”.

I still wonder right now, “Would it have been different if I was told I was beautiful when I was younger?”

Those words still echo in my head. “She is so dark, do you think you will ever be successful in life?” some will say at times.

“I am cursed, why did God do this to me?” I wondered.

As young as I was, I hated myself, even though others never noticed. I felt I was not worthy of anything gorgeous. Each and every time I looked myself in the mirror, I was even petrified. I wanted to believe I was lovely but the world I lived in told me the opposite.

“I still remember gaudily, that day my primary school teacher said to me “yoo montsho nkareng sebete sa tonki.” It built in me that I was nought. The misery I felt that day was agonising notwithstanding that I was just an innocent little girl, who was always good, at least I tried to be. Instead of praying to God that I needed a bike and a Barbie doll like other girls did, I prayed that I became beautiful.

As I grew older, one girl came to me one day and said “I am sorry for all the things I used to say to you, I just envied the girl that you were, we all envied you that`s why we were hateful to you.”

It came to be, I have always been beautiful. It`s only that the demoralising words that people usually used upon me as a weaker person drove me into believing I was ugly, and not worth anything or rather I would not become anything delightful in life.

I internalised that negative force of all the things people said about me hence it seemed natural to believe I was nothing, to the point uttering those negative words to myself.

Defining beauty is more personal and so mysterious. I believe it all starts inside. like I said, I used to feel ugly and standing in front of the mirror every day and reciting these words to myself “I am beautiful, I am God`s image, I can do everything I set myself to do” helped me to find who I really was, a very attractive beautiful lady.

I learnt to believe in myself, to appreciate my flaws and so must you. No one is going to believe in you until you start believe in yourself. Even if one tells you that you are beautiful, it should start with you believing that you are indeed beautiful. 

A lot of people are bitter about their own lives, things are not working out for them the way they wanted to, and instead picking the weaker ones is “always an easier option”. As individuals we should always programme ourselves to only take in the good things that people say about ourselves.

As for the negative things, we should always try by all means to learn from them. “You are so dull”, make sure that you work extra hard to better that so that at the end of the day they don`t have anything ugly to point at in you.

People always have something to say and it`s up to you how as an individual you respond. As one writer once said “whatever you believe in the inside will manifest outside”. ENDS

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