Like most world-altering realisations that strike us throughout our lives, this realisation came to me on a random, insignificant Tuesday evening. There was no sudden lightbulb, no gasp or fanfare, just a thought drifting into my mind as I met my gaze in the mirror and caught myself in a rare moment of agreement with my reflection: ‘I think I…like myself?’

At Cambridge, you tend to encounter a whirlwind of conversations. The university ecosystem sweeps together thousands of young people who are all eager to learn, desperate to please, and have no idea what they’re doing. In short, there’s a lot to talk about. However, throughout my debates in lecture halls, small talk in cafes, and confessions in The Eagle, I have never heard the phrase ‘I like myself’ being uttered once. University is a place where conversation and debate thrive, but somehow we all seem to skirt around saying one phrase in particular.

“Liking yourself may have somehow become a radical act, but it is also a necessary one"

We live in a world that doesn’t want us to like ourselves. It only takes a simple scroll on social media to be inundated with content telling you to change. Scroll some more and, if you encounter someone proclaiming that they do like themselves, the comments will be filled with people listing reasons why they shouldn’t, tearing them down with the same fervour as Harold of Wessex in the Battle of Hastings. It’s become audacious to have high self-esteem, and taboo to talk about it.

I remember the first time I noticed the way my mother looked at herself. I don’t know when I began to look at myself differently in the mirror, too, but one day I was playing make-believe that I had a twin stuck behind glass, and the next moment I was pulling at my skin trying to contort myself into some different shape. The 2024 Girlguiding Girls’ Attitudes Survey reported that, of the 2,734 women they questioned, many felt increasing pressure to change: 1 in 5 women between the ages of 17-21 said they were considering cosmetic procedures in the next 5 years, 47% of those between 11-21 have already been on a diet, and 54% wish they looked like the online filtered versions of themselves.

“It’s become audacious to have high self-esteem, and taboo to talk about it”

We need to start becoming comfortable with conversations that assert our self-worth. According to the Dove 2017 Global Girls Beauty and Confidence Report, eight out of ten of those with low self-esteem avoided social engagements due to a lack of confidence, compared to four out of ten of those with high self-esteem. Low self-esteem changes the way you walk; it convinces you that certain rooms are out of bounds. It’s about so much more than how we view our bodies: it’s how we view ourselves and our possibilities. It shapes what we think we deserve, the jobs we apply for, and the relationships we fall into. Its significance cannot be overstated: self-esteem saves lives. I know so many women who have endured abusive relationships because they didn’t see themselves as deserving of better treatment. My aunt, a therapist, often encounters low self-esteem as a factor in both enabling prolonged narcissistic abuse while also being a key consequence of it, leaving many victims caged in a cycle of low self-worth.

Liking yourself may have somehow become a radical act, but it is also a necessary one. If you want to make the most out of every opportunity offered to you and have healthy relationships, then you’re going to need to like yourself, and you’re going to need to start soon.

Over the past year, I started treating it like an assignment of equal worth to any supervision essay or exam. I intercepted thoughts that told me I needed to change, I left rooms I didn’t want to be in anymore, and I directed my energy towards the relationships in my life that are patient and compassionate. I made an effort to love myself every day, no matter if I felt beautiful or ugly, upstanding or horrible. After years of listening to conflicting voices telling me how to be, I decided to keep it simple: I try my best to be good, to be kind as often as possible, and I let that be enough. It was hard, and some days it’s still hard, but then I find myself dancing to one of my favourite songs and I’m in love again. I like myself. People tell you you’ll need to do a lot of things when you start university: get a good sleep routine, go to your 9 a.m., and write down clear notes. They don’t tell you to start liking yourself, and they certainly don’t mention that you’re going to make people uncomfortable by doing so. I have looked in the mirror and seen many different things over the years, but I have never seen someone so audacious before. It’s the best I’ve ever looked.