We accept the love we think we deserve

Useless metal is thrown at your feet. It laughs at you because it's only an illusion - lust that feels like love; iron that looks like silver if you delude yourself enough. But you pick it up and turn it over in your hands. it happened again today. he said he wants it. that must mean something. maybe he only wants it, but, well, maybe he wants me. maybe it's not a bad idea. it's a rare chance, after all.

At first, when you show it to me, worthless iron pretending to be silver, I say "don't accept it; it will only ruin you." I assume you know that you are gold, and the iron will only cheapen you. What I don't realise is that you don't understand what I'm saying, because you think you are iron, too. 

I don't think true silver exists, you say. I say of course it does. I list people we know who are in love, and who love with so much purity and wholeness. But you don't believe it will happen to you. True love is for other people, you say; true pure love is so precious and rare, and you are not pretty or attractive enough for it. I slowly begin to realise the real problem. You see yourself the same way I see myself: worthless.

I think I am ugly, and socially awkward, and too boring and annoying for people to want to be with. I think I am talentless and extremely, extremely weak, a pathetic dog that people adopt because they pity me (or because they're too nice to turn me away). But yesterday, I found the courage to reject these thoughts about myself. Baoyun told me that she knew I had the potential to be so much more, but it never shows because I keep desperately clinging on to one small thing and letting it determine all of me, making myself so little. And because she could look at my hopeless state and say I know you can be so much more, I decided to force myself to believe it. And so I told him. I said "I believe I am more, so stop it with the sighing, because it makes me feel like I am useless, and I am not."

Remember Emma Watson's character in Perks? "We accept the love we think we deserve." Is it possible for a beautiful person to think she isn't beautiful, and accept lousy things because that's all she thinks she's worth? My dear, I wish you knew the things I see in you. You have such a precious heart, so pure and loyal, with incredible capacity to love. You are so encouraging, so selfless, so full of beautiful qualities that are so rare these days. When I think about you I am literally reminded of precious jewels; I am not exaggerating. You have so much pressure on all sides telling you to give it up, give up your values they are useless, but you still believe they must be worth something; do you know how precious that is? You think so little of yourself, but when you are happy and confident, it shows, and you become so much more beautiful on the outside, too.

There are people we think of as good-looking and attractive, but upon closer scrutiny, you realise that you only think so because of their personality. They don't have a pretty face, but their cheerful smiles and huge personalities make them pretty. Our confidence and personality really do make up half our exterior image. Look at her. I think she's pretty, but when I think about it closely, if she didn't have that beautiful confident personality, she wouldn't be pretty at all. Look at him. He's downright ugly, but his personality makes him so charming. 

Remember the time I kept comparing myself to someone else, and felt inferior in every way? You said "That just doesn't make sense. You can't compare yourself to her. You are completely different people." And I ignored your words, but then a few days later you started doing it, too. You looked at someone and you felt like you were less than her. And I was like, "are you crazy? How can you see yourself as less than her? You are so beautiful, and your heart is dripping with loveliness. How could you even do that?" To me, it was so obvious that you were being ridiculous. And then I realised: you probably thought my comparisons were ridiculous, too.

Oh, by the way. A certain very pretty person told me that, once upon a time, she thought she was ugly. When I heard that I was like "-________- that's not possible lol lame", and tossed that aside. But then, if someone so beautiful could think she was ugly, doesn't that prove how blind we are to ourselves? If you, my dear, think you are worth so little, might it be that there is beauty in me that I am not seeing, too?

And so I am still trying to see myself through your eyes. I do that by reminding myself of how I see you: it's so bloody obvious that you are such a beautiful person, and it doesn't make sense that you don't see any of it. And then I remind myself that that's what you think about me, too. And then I tell myself that I am beautiful just like you are. I don't see it, but to you it's so obvious, just like how your beauty is so obvious to me, and so my beauty must be as true as yours is.

I also know from past experience that if I believe I am ugly, I will become ugly, and if I believe I am beautiful, others will see it, too. All I need to be beautiful is to believe it. 

I wish you could see how freaking beautiful you are, dear. But since you can't see it, I want you to remember the way you think about me - how you keep trying to convince me that I am a beautiful person - and tell yourself that that is exactly how I see you, too. The beauty in me that is so obvious to you, is just like your own beauty. I wish you could see it. I wish you could. Because then you would realise that you are worth so much more than what you let yourself believe in. You are precious gold, and scraps of iron are not even worth your attention.