- Self-confidence is the real beauty
When Lizzie was born, she was diagnosed with a very rare syndrome, which means she can not gain weight. In fact, she has never weighed more than 29kg and has zero % body fat.When she was growing up, Lizzie Velasquez was told that she was so ugly and should do the world a favor, put a gun upside down and commit suicide.I know what you’re wondering.
Did she do it?
Well, the answer is no. Of course not. That’s not her style.
The realization of being different
In her TED talk, Lizzie candidly talks about her first day at school when she first became aware that she was different to the other kids. She describes their reaction as if they were seeing a monster, and her first disappointment at the way she was treated differently.“I’ve had a really difficult life, but that’s ok. Things have been scary, things have been tough. But my parents were my inspiration. They told me: ‘This syndrome will not define who you are. Go to school pick your head up, smile, continue to be yourself and people will start to see that you’re just like them.’ So that’s what I did.“
Lizzie maintains her skillful and fresh language while facing a very painful moment in her life. She describes how as a child every day she would look in the mirror and pray that the next day she would look different. Yet each day she would be disappointed all over again.
When everything changed
Yet it was that fateful day when she saw the video of herself online with 4 million views and the title Worlds Ugliest woman that really became the turning point for her. It forced her to choose between a life where she defined herself purely based on the way she looked or a life where she would focus on what she did have. Something clicked inside her head. She realized:
“My life is in my hands. I can choose to make this really good or choose to make this really bad. I can open my eyes and focus on the things I do have and make those things the things that define me. I can’t see out of one eye, but I can see out of the other. I might get sick a lot, but I have really nice hair. Will I let people who say "kill her with fire" define me? Will I let the people who called me a monster define me? No. I’m going to let my goals and my success and my accomplishments define me.”
So Lizzie took that negativity and used it as a catalyst to motivate her. She worked her butt off to make her dreams come true. She decided that the best way she could get back at all of those people was to show them that she could use those negative things they
called her as a ladder to climb up to her goals.
The moral of this story self-confidence is the real beauty.
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