The 10% of the 100%
By Nykearah Redding
IG: nykearahr
2020 has been one heck of a year, it has aloud most if not all of us time for self evaluation and hopefully some self improvement. Like many of you I can say that 2020 has been one of the hardest years for me mentally. It has challenged me in ways that I would have never thought and it has made me confront some of my deepest problems and insecurities. The truth is I could sit here and point of all the negatives because that would be so easy considering there were so many. But today I’m not going to take the easy way out I’m going to share the positives that came from this year.
The thing that I would consider the most positive would be that we got to experience 2020 together. I know some of you may not see the big deal of this but I do. 2020 has allowed us to break this unrealistic idea of perfection. We have seen some of the most “put together” people struggle and fall apart. This year has allowed us to see that everyone goes through what we go through. While it may have been only short lived, we got to witness society take a break from their obsession with perfection and embrace all the imperfections that we as a whole posses.
One thing that this past year has made me realize was that we all seem to follow this rule that I like to call the 10% of the 100%. It’s where In any social setting where we have to present ourselves we take the part of ourselves that we see fit for that situation and present it and glorify it. This part that we choose to present only accounts for about 10% of who we are. We spend so much time with this 10% of us, we make sure it’s “perfect” and “flawless” so that we may fit in. Now this seems like such a great idea at first until you invest so much time into this 10% of yourself that you forget that the other 90% still exist. We convert our personalities around societal expectations and as soon as we see someone who wants to break the social norm that we have created in our heads we automatically associate them with being a rebel, unique or sometimes just plain weird. The truth is we all are unique we’ve just convinced ourselves that we’re just like everyone else.
We fail to see how truly amazing we are. Look what you’ve accomplished this year. Look how far you’ve come. If 2020 has taught you anything it should be that life goes by so quick. What are you going to do with it. How are you going to present yourself. We have got to get out of this pretend bubble and be authentically us.
The best part about us is not the 10% that we show. It’s the whole 100%, the good, bad crazy, angry, emotional, boring, toxic, healing parts of ourselves. Everyday is a struggle, everybody is struggling with something no matter how big or small. So instead of focusing on perfecting this small part of us, let’s focus on embracing all of us. You will spend your whole life figuring out what you want and who you are. The best part about this life here is learning and growing and we can’t do that if we keep trying to hide ourselves in this closet of shame and humiliation. Embrace all of you, even if you haven’t reached 100% of your personality and you’re still figuring it out. Give all you have to give right now because the right people with see you for all those imperfections and they will love you not just 10% of you. They’ve already seen that 10% now it’s time to present the rest.