Today’s article is about the standards of beauty that we all cultivate. The way you perceive beauty affects your relationship in a profound way – it can take it to the next level and create intimacy, or destroy it.
It is true that every culture and age has its ideal of beauty, for which we are invariably chasing, in recent times, however, through the spread of the mass media we are dealing with an unprecedented situation. Millions of young women are taught from childhood that they should look like the “beautiful women from magazine covers” – I mean – to not have any imperfections, to have perfect skin, figure, no excess fat, not to mention cellulitis or other such issues. This often creates discomfort in young women’s own imperfections and makes them want to mask their flaws. You want to test this thesis? Ask a random female, whether she likes her body, and chances are, she will come up with something she doesn’t like or that “needs work”. Those that benefit from this situation are of course companies producing cosmetics and the entire industry associated with plastic surgery. All of this is the result of collective madness to which we gave up as civilization – the pursuit of the beautiful appearance.
However, as is well known to those who are inquisitive, movie stars or models aren’t realistically presented in magazines or on the computer screen – they actually look quite average in real life… Often worse than the beautiful woman who lies next to you and you do not appreciate. The fact is that Photoshop has changed our perception of reality. It seems to us that human beings can look the way these magazines present them, but they will not, and can not, look like this. This belief is only increasing suffering: For men because they pursue an elusive ideal and feel like they are hitting the wall of reality time and time again. For women because they still feel insufficiently beautiful and don’t believe in sincere admiration if they hear it. In summary, our image of beauty is built on lies, leading us to believe that beauty is only one figure or type of body. Meanwhile, in the real world, beauty has all sizes and shapes, and is completely subjective. I’ll also express here my subjective opinion.
What happens to a young girl whose inculcated belief is that above all else, she must look nice & be liked by others? What will happen to her self-esteem? Will it flow from the inside? What quality does that bring to the world? Do you want to develop their talents so they may become happy, loving individuals, or perhaps you have other priorities? How much of your energy do you devote to make sure she adjusts to what she thinks is necessary to be accepted by her peers? And finally, what would be better for her? To strive to be “beautiful” in the eyes of others or to strive to be happy?
I do not know what you think, but for me beautiful people are those who have good hearts. Beautiful people are happy. Beautiful is the overweight “IZ” for his amazing performance of “Somewhere over the rainbow.” Beautiful is the gentleman who kindly helps an elderly neighbor with their home purchases. Beautiful is a lady who tenderly helps her children to move forward into new world unknown to them. These are the qualities that make our lives better. On the other hand, I know people with very attractive outer appearance (in my opinion), yet so far from beauty. People who will hurt others without even blinking. Unhappy, or vain to the extent that the outer shell is the only thing in them to explore. Think about how you define beauty.
One might think – “right, you give a few idealistic concepts here, but you certainly have your ideal of beauty.” Sure. Just as every human being, some features seem to be more appealing to me and some less. But to me this is just one part of the puzzle I call beauty. At first I may not even like you, but if you have something special that makes me feel enchanted, things that bothered me are starting to seem awesome. And vice versa – after a few conversations with some girl, I might find that she completely ceased to be attractive for me even though the initial physical attraction was high. First of all, ladies – a message especially to those who feel unattractive and uncomfortable in their own skin – instead of chasing another life-changing cosmetic, dedicate time and work to accepting yourself. You may think that you’re not an ideal of beauty, but the truth is that nothing attracts a guy like a woman who is not ashamed of herself and is not afraid of her sex appeal. If you like yourself, soon you will become somebody’s ideal of beauty. But above all, do it for yourself. Give yourself the right to happiness. We want more women who believe in themselves, seething with energy, knowing their TRUE value and not being ashamed to show it. I think that women want the same thing from us guys. We were just manipulated to believe that other, superficial things count more.
Message to men – never underestimate the beauty of a woman that stands by your side. Do not get brainwashed by mass media standards. If you want to be around more valuable people, value people for who they are and what they represent, not for how they look.
At the end I want to point out that I am not suggesting to stop taking care of your appearance or cherishing it… I just want you to do those things out of love for yourself and your own needs, not from shame that was instilled in us by others.
#StopTheBeautyMadness