What is real?

This week at work, I've posted two articles that touch on the subject of "realness" and how we want people to remember us. Do we want people to have a false impression of who we really are? Or do we want people to know and remember the real person inside us?

Erin wrote a blog post about how they have these new cameras with a feature to take 15 pounds off your subject. She talked about how while that sounds like a fabulous feature…do we really want to pretend to be something we're not?

Candice wrote an article that talked about how we are often afraid to include ourselves in our own photos and in our memory keeping because we are afraid we can't live up to society's standards of beauty. Or even our own standards for that matter. And we don't want people (including ourselves) to remember us as the sub-par person we sometimes believe ourselves to be.

I loved these articles! I think this is such an issue. How do we embrace the person we are—imperfections and all? I'll be honest, lately I have sort of felt like I'm so inadequate and because of that, I've been laying kind of low. I guess I'm afraid to expose my imperfect self to the world.

But you know what? I want to be remembered as someone who made an effort in her life to have meaningful relationships with others. Someone who helped others and someone who was happy. Someone who people enjoy being around because she cared. And I can't do that if I'm hiding behind some sort of cover-up.

So this is me…real and unedited--imperfections and all--the way I see myself in the mirror every day. And I hope that little by little, I can shed those fears of inadequacy and become comfortable enough with my imperfections to not let them get in the way of the person I am and the person I want to be.