When Someone Said, “You’re Not Aesthetic Enough”
Someone recently told me that “I’m not aesthetic enough.”
Not knowing how to respond, I just smiled and shrugged it off, but as my overthinker self, it stayed with me. Just when I start to have a clear mindset about things in life, something or the other is always ready like a truck to hit me. This really made me think about myself a little longer that evening.
What Does “Aesthetic Enough” Even Mean?
And through everything the only question that kept popping in my mind was, “What does “aesthetic enough” even mean?”
As a kid and even now as an adult, I’ve always loved and adored art and my love for visuals still continues. It’s all about the way a certain colour feels like, the rhythm of beautiful things gently put together. Well, I love the idea of framing moments, curating various corners of my life and expressing myself through whatever I do.
I fall for a lot of things, which includes soft music, movie stills, book quotes and even small things like the taste of my favourite drink and the way paper feels in my hand. Even after loving all of this, I personally don’t think everything in life has to be aesthetic, sometimes it’s better to crave and love the rawness of things around us.
The Pressure to Look Perfect in a Curated World
I think because of social media, the word “aesthetic” has become a measure of worth. It is not a term for art or an expression anymore, but a measuring scale for how we are living, how we appear and how we are perceived by society. There is also this rat race to please the people we don’t even know, and in all of this we forget the value of just being. I love being messy, being quiet and being real.
In this world obsessed with social media, everything is all about grandness, loud declarations, glossy things and edited perfect lives. The constant pressure to look a certain way (perfect), and to speak a certain way. And looking into things I personally love, be it books or movies, there is this constant push to consume everything quickly like it is some sort of competition, share everything as soon as possible and while doing all this you also have to make things look “PERFECT”. It feels like all of this is noise and the silence has vanished.
The Trap of Comparison and Constant Consumption
Honestly, I’ve fallen hard for this too. There are times when I scroll through the endless explosion of content available to us, it always makes me wonder if I’m doing enough, or if I’m just falling behind in some imaginary race. I think people and me ofcourse measure ourselves against people we haven’t even met, forgetting that most of what is important is value. I usually find myself adjusting, altering and editing pictures and parts of me while trying to belong within the big ground, to be appreciated and to be seen.
But I love my breaks where I can pause, days where I wake up and don’t want to perform. I usually crave slowness in life at least once a day a week, making myself kadak adrak wali chai and sipping it with slow music, reading a book peacefully by my window sill, letting my hair stay in a bun all day. These moments constantly remind me that the most beautiful parts of my life are often the quietest.
The world has changed so much it has become fast paced, loud, and more likely where people forgot the value of slow life. There is something so lovely about taking your time, not the rush to post, to glow up, to prove. I never thought slow life is boring, it’s a little brave like taking that leap of faith.
There’s No One Way to Be Aesthetic
And this idea of not being “aesthetic enough”? I personally think that’s the biggest lie we’ve started to believe. Aesthetics is not universal, rather it is deeply personal. What feels beautiful to you might not be the same to others but that is genuinely okay. That’s how everything is designed to be. Some people love beige tones and minimalism, while others might find beauty in simply cluttered desks, mismatched things, and just scribbled thoughts. None of it is wrong. There’s no standard for what’s beautiful if you really think about it.
This is a quiet reminder that I should not wait around for someone to validate my existence or aesthetics. I want to appreciate the version of me that I already am. Yes, I still seek validation, like most of us do everyday. And yes, I also fall for traps sometimes. But I’m learning to get up from the fall I take everytime. To wake up. To stop hoping that things will magically align and instead start working gently, steadily, toward the life I want to live.
A life that’s soft, real, slow, sometimes aesthetic, sometimes not. But always mine.
