From the author: Published on February 23, 2013 on the website Last time we talked to you about the fact that the ideal man is an image that prevents us from living. Today we will talk about the other side of the coin. About how we strive to be ideal women. Since childhood, we have been constantly told what we should be. Study well, cook deliciously, make the right creases on your trousers, raise children correctly... And at the same time, no one was particularly interested in what we really are, what we really want. All our lives we strive to become that ideal woman. And we sincerely believe that this will make us happy. But where is happiness? Have we met our prince? And have we become princesses ourselves? If you put your hand on your heart and be honest with yourself, then we have not become ideal. And so we work every day to become even better. We take courses on “How to be the ideal woman that all men dream of,” we eat right (well, we try, at least), we go to the gym, periodically go on diets, and get involved in things that are fashionable for an ideal woman to indulge in (yoga, meditations, etc.). But have we become happier? No. They didn’t. We force ourselves to do what we don’t want, only because someone once inspired us that doing so is right. And we accepted these rules of the game without even thinking that we had the opportunity to choose. We continue to be ideal with enviable persistence. Because we are afraid of being imperfect, insignificant, not representing anything. Now I’ll try to explain. Every condition has an opposite. For example, good and bad, kind and evil. Also with perfection. The opposite of ideality is imperfection. And when you cannot be ideal, then you become imperfect. And this means that the end of the world has come. After all, those who strive to be ideal have a strong belief that it is impossible to be imperfect. Otherwise, you will not be loved, other people will not need you. To be imperfect means to disappoint yourself and others. This means stop getting approval. In a word - a disaster. Therefore, many women direct all their efforts to being ideal. We give a lot of prohibitions to ideality. The ideal woman cannot do many things and needs many things. For example, she should always be in a great mood and should not suffer. She needs to smile and cannot show her emotions in public. She must cook/house/raise children/etc perfectly, and she cannot make mistakes. Every mistake and mistake severely impacts the image of an ideal woman and threatens her status as ideal. Can you imagine the tension many of us have to live under in order to maintain the myth of ideality? And now about the main thing. The goal of the ideal woman is to be liked and approved by everyone. She longs to be recognized and praised. Does she get this in real life? Does everyone like her? Does everyone praise her? Does everyone think of her the way she wants? Does she get approval? Let's be honest. In fact, others don’t care about the ideal woman and her perfection. Because each of us has our own life. Your own problems. Your interests and your own affairs. And therefore, in 99% of cases, those around you are indifferent to the achievements of an ideal woman. And sometimes with anger. For some people, ideal women cause irritation, anger and even envy (I envy those who also suffer from the desire to be ideal). Therefore, the mistakes of an ideal woman are always noticed. And they poke her nose. They say, “look how imperfect you are.” And then the ideal woman is overwhelmed. She is suffering. She's in pain. She tried so hard. But no one appreciated it. Nobody understood. Nobody recognized it. No one saw. There are two ways out of this suffering. The main, but not the best, is to become even more ideal. Take on the task of creating your ideal life with redoubled force. To be even better. And there is an illusion that if she becomes even better, then people will definitely notice her and give her what she so dreams of - approval and.