It all started with a nail color… I was getting my nails done and per usual, the nail artist gave me a book with every color you could possibly imagine. I was looking through each of them as I thought “oh, my boyfriend loves apple red!” and “oh, my mom does not like that lilac purple” when it hit me. What is my favorite color?
When I asked myself this question, so simple, so juvenile, so first day of school ice breaker, I couldn’t for the life of me think of an answer. Had I grown so far away from myself that I haven’t thought of my own favorite color, being too concerned with the color those around me favored or loathed? Had I ever had a favorite color, or was my favorite color always what I thought others wanted it to be? Do I even have a favorite color? How could someone not have a favorite color? Basically, I was going through an essential crisis when the nail artist snapped me out of it when she asks what color I had chosen. Half of me wanted to blurt out “you can choose!” then the other half wanted to force myself through this uncomfortable situation and come out of it knowing what color I most prefer. I chose the latter.
I asked for a few more minutes to decide when I began eyeing the pinks… “Am I a ‘my favorite color is pink’ type of girl?”, I thought to myself. “No, I couldn’t be… I don’t do pageants, have my hair and makeup done and look presentable all the time, smile at everyone I walk past without a worry in the world… No, can’t be pink.” I thought. “Okay, how about black? The opposite end of the spectrum. But… no again. I’m not sad or mad, I don’t wear black clothing all the time, and I don’t feel that I have the general personality to ‘pull off’ the nail color black”. Then it hit me…. A color is just a color.
Why are we so quick to place judgment on a color? Was it once a survival tactic we used to distinguish a dangerous animal from a friendly one? Or maybe we are wired to simply, judge? The fear of being judged harshly has always been so ingrained in me, that I feel I’d do anything to stay in favor of the strangest stranger. So, who cares what color is on my nails? I’ll get them redone in two weeks, never to see the nail art again. We put so much pressure on what others may or may not think; as they say, “You are what you think people think you are”, and we allow that phrase to rule our entire lives, losing sight of something as simple as our favorite color. We also must remember that our favorite color today may be different tomorrow, different in the next hour, and different in the next minute, and that’s okay. That’s incredible, being able to know ourselves and feel comfortable enough to choose a color because we like it, not because we want to have something in common with our mom or our boyfriend.
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