Beauty Obsessed

Beauty has always been attracting our attention. We strive to achieve it in many different fields like art, design, architecture. It also inspires us to create the most beautiful poems, paintings and songs. While beauty standards have changed throughout the years, some principles have remained the same. We will always respond well to symmetry and harmony, as our minds like to find some order even in such abstract thing as beauty.

We cannot mention beauty without thinking about women. I will intentionally leave men out of this talk, not because they are not beautiful, but because they don’t face the same issues as us girls do, and they don’t face them as often as us. Now, we can all have our own definitions of what makes a person beautiful, but I want to stay on the skin deep level. For some it’s big blue eyes, for others it’s full lips, or sharp defined cheek bones. If you’re lucky enough and had won a DNA lottery you might have all three of those. Maybe you also got tiny waist and luscious hair and you get to look great without putting much effort into it. But, how about the rest of us? How far are you willing to go in order to be beautiful?

You don’t like your curly hair? That’s easy, just get a hair straightener. Don’t like the colour of your eyes, or the size of your eyelashes? Get contacts and fake eyelashes. Think your nose is too big? Well, you can always have a plastic surgery. Basically, anything that’s too big or too small can be fixed with some products or a visit to the plastic surgeon. The statistics prove without a doubt, that more and more women all over the world are doing exactly that. They are going under the knife to get something fixed, often without even realising that surgeries can be dangerous and even life threatening. So, I am wondering – Where along the way did we loose the compass and became so beauty obsessed that we were willing to risk our lives because of our looks? Is beauty really the number one priority for women nowadays?

We are all guilty of it more or less. Think about all the time you dedicate to your appearance. Think about all the money you give on products like makeup and skin care and hair care and so on. As women, we do have a special connection with the way we look, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Getting a manicure can change my mood and it’s not something I plan to give up on. Taking time to care about ourselves can make us feel all more confident and good in our skin. I am all up for it as long as we don’t forget that that’s not all of who we are. We need to make little girls realise that looks are not everything. We need to tell them they’re smart and kind, and not just how pretty they are and that they look like princesses. We need to teach them to be strong, so one day when they grow up they won’t feel insecure or try to chase the unachievable beauty ideals created in a computer or in a hospital. Beauty is great and we will always appreciate it, but in this chase of beauty obsessed people I feel we will never win. After all, you can always be a bit skinnier, your boobs can always be a bit bigger, your waist could be smaller, hair longer, nose smaller, legs longer, butt bigger and I could go on forever. So why waste so much time focusing on something that will fade away sooner or later? Girls, let’s wake up and start focusing on things that really matter and that will get us far in life. Treat yourself right, but don’t forget that under the skin, you have so many more layers to yourself and they deserve your attention too.

Please share your thoughts in the comments bellow, and if you want to hear more about this topic I recommend TED Talk called An epidemic of beauty sickness.