Critical Essay on Self-Acceptance and Its Importance for Teenagers

The need for acceptance is a deep, human condition that affects individuals regardless of their ethnic, cultural, or religious backgrounds. This human need begins throughout infancy and birth because infants depend on love, empathy, and acceptance provided by parents. If that infant is not accepted throughout their childhood, they will then become vulnerable and will constantly crave acceptance from anyone. This powerful influence often comes to a point of crisis around the age of sixteen, due to the numerous changes within society. This essay will explore the issue in more thorough depth and detail.

“You accept that, as a fallible human being, you are less than perfect. You will often perform well, but you will also err at times… You always and unconditionally accept yourself without judgment” (Grieger, 2013).

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Self-acceptance is understood to be an individual’s acceptance of one’s personal attributes, both positive and negative. Self-acceptance affects teenagers of the 21st century because, according to the Harvard Health Publishing Blog (2016), “We develop our self-esteem, in part, from others appreciating us, people with low self-acceptance may have had parents who lacked in empathy during their childhood”. Numerous teens deal with the difficulty of accepting themselves, as a result, teens are utilizing various texts, including blogs, novels, TV series, and poems, to help deal with this current struggle. Self-acceptance is important for authors to convey realistically throughout their texts. The texts ‘What Is Self-Acceptance’, ‘My Strengths and Weaknesses’, and ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’ all portray why accepting one’s self is vital. This essay will analyze and evaluate how self-acceptance is portrayed throughout these texts, as well as evaluate how the authors have employed literary devices to position the audience.

The ability to fully accept one’s self is to not only embrace the positives but also embrace the negatives, as they both make up the foundation of an individual. True self-acceptance is when an individual embraces their true and authentic self without any conditions, exceptions, or qualifications. Accepting the negatives is not simple, it is not easy to accept the aspects that individuals desperately try to change. However, until these features are accepted, the process of meaningful self-improvement cannot begin. For instance, ‘What Is Self-Acceptance’, provided by Positive Psychology Program, utilizes concise language to get the true meaning of self-acceptance through to readers, “an individual’s acceptance of all of his/her attributes, positive or negative” (Positive Psychology Program, 2018). This definition emphasizes the significance of accepting all assets of one’s self, as it is not enough to simply embrace the good, valuable, and positive, but the bad, less desirable and negatives must also be embodied. Throughout the blog, Positive Psychology Program utilized rhetorical questions to position the audience. Rhetorical questions that were used included: “Do you accept yourself?” and “Don’t we all accept ourselves as a regular part of living our day-to-day lives?” (Positive Psychology Program, 2018). From the inclusion of rhetorical questions, the overall point of accepting one’s self was further emphasized as it caught the audience’s attention and got them thinking. In contrast, self-acceptance isn’t only about accepting all attributes, but also finding that true inner strength inside.

All teenagers of the 21st century have an inner strength, which then leads to self-acceptance. Finding self-acceptance requires embracing the present self and letting go of the past self to step out of comfort zones and overcome hardships. It is vital to separate an individual from who they are from what they have done, as it is about understanding that everyone makes mistakes, but that is how learning and growing occur. For instance, ‘My Strengths and Weaknesses’ by Dr. Ram Mehta is a poem about his personal self-acceptance journey. Mehta utilizes point of view to position readers to understand how true self-acceptance can be found. The verse, “I accepted all challenges to my large family life, self-acceptance came from meeting challenges. As a result of that, I went beyond all of them. Learnt, the greatest success is successful acceptance” (Mehta, 2018). This verse is an example of the literary technique, point of view, as it emphasizes that all challenges must be accepted for that is where self-acceptance arises from. In contrast, self-acceptance is about accepting one’s self regardless of past decisions but letting their true self be seen.

If anything, true self-acceptance is about displaying one’s raw and authentic self to others without feeling ashamed or embarrassed. Within today’s society courage is required to speak about insecurities, as a result, bravery is then necessary to live authentically with one’s imperfections. Teenagers strive to appear perfect, however, the truth is no one will ever be perfect. Everyone is different and unique, meaning these differences should be accepted within society. ‘The Gifts of Imperfections’ by Brene Brown is a book based on accepting one’s imperfections. There is a quote in the novel: “Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen” (Brown, 2018). This quote emphasizes the true significance of accepting one’s self, as it is important to not live in the shadow of others but in the sunshine of one’s own authentic self. Brown utilizes the literary technique of repetition within this quote, to further emphasize that it is the individual’s own choice to accept their flaws. It positions the audience to understand that every day is a choice, that teenagers can choose to be real and authentic or they can simply hide their true selves.

In conclusion, the authors’ attempts at emphasizing the importance of embracing all attributes, finding that inner strength, and living authentically were all effective. All three texts represented key components of self-acceptance while providing further insight into why it’s so vital for teenagers to truly accept themselves. Always remember, “You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, ‘I’m proud of what I am and who I am, and I’m just going to be myself’” (Carey, 2018).