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| Illustration by Sabogal Diego |
A 54 year old actress by the name of Brooke Shields discussed on an interview that even though she was so afraid of plastic surgery, she would do anything to look and feel her best. (Frey, 2019). Humans have this urge to look their best. Personally, I like when I can enjoy someone’s time and have a beneficial interaction getting to know their personality. Looks can not change your heart. When we are comfortable with ourselves and notice our inner beauty, we will realize it’s not all about physicality. Awareness is the first step for change and we therefore have to be aware of a specific issue to know exactly how to change it. If you feel insecure about your appearance and want to make a certain alteration to boost your confidence, that's great; we only have one life to find happiness. However, your nose having a different structure than a celebrity is not an issue!
All throughout the media we see claims of particular women being symbols for beauty and power. Since we don't have those “ideal” characteristics we want to change our appearance closer to what is portrayed as beautiful. Ironically, the people with the “ideal” characteristics also want to change though. They want to be lighter, want their hair straighter; what we have is never that “ideal” trait after all. If you want to change your body, do it for you.
Whatever happened to loving the skin you are in? Well I guess we can change the phrase to “love the skin you make”. Then again, people change the way they look so many times, it seems like we can’t even love our modified bodies. It's more interesting to ask “what are you going to do next?” rather than “What did you originally look like again?” which is the sad part about it. Sometimes people aren’t going to feel beautiful. I understand that yelling “hashtag you are beautiful!” won’t always be enough to change someone’s emotions.
Sometimes constantly looking for that new look is a hobby, interest or fantasy. Just consider my point also and make sure you make genuine changes. The less changes performed will obviously minimize the chance for mistakes and possible life changing accidents. Beauty is not solely a physical trait. People are adored for their mind, their love, their kind ways, all which could be beautiful. Don't let the media manipulate you to think you have to look a specific way. The ideal look is YOUR look.
“SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL, BUT NOT LIKE THOSE GIRLS IN THE MAGAZINES. SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL FOR THE WAY SHE THOUGHT. SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL FOR THE SPARKLE IN HER EYES WHEN SHE TALKED ABOUT SOMETHING SHE LOVED. SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL FOR HER ABILITY TO MAKE OTHER PEOPLE SMILE, EVEN IF SHE WAS SAD. NO, SHE WASN’T BEAUTIFUL FOR SOMETHING AS TEMPORARY AS HER LOOKS. SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL, DEEP DOWN TO HER SOUL.” (Herfurth, 2017)
Natalie Newman wrote this in her book titled Butterflies and Bullshit in 2011. Though this quote was attributed to someone specific, it was originally quoted as written by an unknown person. There are millions of traits in which can highlight our beauty. Beauty is within. We can continue to allow physicality to symbolize our beauty, or we can see the beauty in the other things we do; in the million other things that we are.
References
Frey, K. (2019). Brooke Shields Says She's 'Afraid' of Plastic Surgery But Wants to Do 'Everything I Can to Look My Best'. Style.
Herfurth, Haley. (2017). 11 Popular Quotes Commonly Misattributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Mental Floss.
It is interesting how you mentioned here that those with the 'ideal' image also want to change. It makes me think how those people most likely underwent massive changes to their self-image to achieve that look. Additionally, many of those models or celebrities that are the portrayal of that image do not even look like that in reality. Advertising and marketing is also so widely edited that women question why everyone they're shown looks that way, however, if we stopped and looked around more often I am sure we would see that the majority do not have that 'ideal' look and we could stop comparing ourselves to an unrealistic goal.
ReplyDelete“Looks cannot change our heart”. This line from your writing stood out to me so much. I fully agree with this and it is the most perfect words to use. People judge other people off of their looks without even getting a chance to know them as a person. This is not good at all. We must realize that if we can’t get past looks, we could be missing out on one of the best friendships, connections, interactions that we’d ever have in our life all because we didn’t like how someone looks. The society did this to us and this must be reversed. This is well thought out and much appreciated.
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