𝒵𝒟

The average person in 2026 cannot hold a conversation for five minutes without checking their phone. Cannot form an opinion on something they have not seen summarized in a sixty second video first. Cannot sit with genuine boredom long enough to let their mind produce anything original. Cannot walk into a room full of strangers and navigate it without the social buffer of a screen to retreat to. This is what chronic overstimulation does to a person over years and most people have been doing it for years.

The competition for being a compelling, educated, well-rounded, interesting woman with actual social skills and a real life is essentially nonexistent at this point and social media is almost entirely responsible for that. The average person your age is spending four to seven hours a day on their phone. They are not reading. They are not developing skills. They are not traveling or hosting or learning languages oor doing anything that accumulates into a person worth knowing. They are consuming content about people who are doing those things.

The social skills deterioration alone has created an opening so wide you could walk through it without trying. Face to face conversation has become genuinely difficult for a significant portion of people under thirty. Eye contact, active listening, the ability to hold a thread across a long dinner, knowing how to enter and exit a conversation gracefully, being able to sit with silence without immediately reaching for your phone. These were baseline social competencies a generation ago and they are now genuine differentiators.

Critical thinking has gone the same way. The ability to read something long form, form an independent opinion, defend it in conversation, update it when presented with better information. Most people outsource their thinking to whatever their algorithm has decided they believe this week and it shows immediately in conversation.

You do not have to be extraordinary. You just have to be present, literate, socially functional, curious about the world and actually living your life rather than watching other people live theirs. That combination in 2026 is enough to make you stand out in almost any room you walk into and that should light a fire under you because it means the return on even modest and consistent investment in yourself is higher right now than it has probably ever been.

Complaining never fixed anything, and I was raised with a 3 minute rule. I use it with my friends now that I’m an adult: you have 3 minutes to air your grievances to me, and then we’re moving on. I’ve seen great friendships end, good relationships fail, and sibling bonds fall apart because chronic complainers don’t realize how exhausting they are to other people. I also think that complaining exacerbates anxiety; how can you relax if you can’t let things go and have to rehash them over and over until you feel heard?

I do not need to walk around with unbrushed hair and glasses and an unwashed sweater to prove I am intelligent and I have never had issues with people not taking me serious. I find it empowering to be the one who decides how I present to the world. I chose to study a very difficult major, and there was this one professor I had in university. She was incredibly confident, perfectionistic, hardworking, and I absolutely loved her style. She would come into class handing out papers and I would look up and she would be wearing red lipstick and blue glitter eyeshadow and she loved experimenting with different makeup looks. I never once thought her beauty diminished her intelligence, she was one of the smartest people I knew. I find that mentality completely outdated, and it says far more about the person making the statement than it ever could about the person in question.

One thing that has always irritated me is whenever the topic of beauty comes up people feel the need to remind everyone that it is not the most important thing and that there are deeper, more meaningful qualities. No one ever said beauty was the only thing that mattered. Beauty and intelligence are not opposites. I have a degree from a top university, completed while working and traveling internationally for opportunities. I have studied on multiple continents. I speak six languages. I started working at eighteen and interned at the best companies in my field where I was the youngest person in the room. I have a passport full of stamps, I read constantly across disciplines because I am curious about the world, and I have friends across the globe because I built my own network with my own two hands.

Zahia in 2014 has always been unbelievably stunning in my eyes. Every few years my style does a full 180 but this time around, I’ve gone deep and I'm pulling serious inspiration from the ultimate bombshell herself. I’ve elevated my look into that full-blown hyperfemininity, and I don’t do subtle anymore. I am not relatable, natural, or approachable. I exaggerate everything. I like looking almost unreal and breathtakingly beautiful, I like proportions and silhouettes that seem to defy logic and gravity, and I love presenting myself at my absolute best. I think Zahia marks the zenith of exaggerated glamour.

I’ve built my own version and the reactions have been delicious and I love who I am becoming. I’ve taken inspiration from her makeup looks too: Dramatic, fluttery cat-doll lashes, structured contour that sharpens and sculpted face, blush placed high and precise, lifting the whole face. Brows arched and elongated so my eyes look permanently elevated, slightly feline. A sculpted finish, a soft button nose moment, a defined pout with a subtle key hole. Paired with sensual styling and a feminine aura.

I rewatched her documentary for the umpteenth time and every time I see it I notice something new. Her aesthetic is so perfectly curated it’s almost unreal. The level of commitment she has to her image is honestly kind of insane. Every detail from the way she dresses to the way she tilts her head is cohesive and thought out, and somehow it all suits her so naturally even though you can tell it’s constructed.