Our
whole lives, we have grown up with adult’s description of beauty as “it’s
what’s on the inside that counts.” In elementary school, we were told that
everyone was to be included, especially on Valentine’s Day. Like most
classrooms across the country, the rule was, if you were going to give a card
to one person, then you have to give everyone else a card as well but the truth was that if you were pretty your "mailbox" would be overflowing with goodies. Entering
into middle school this same message was implemented into our minds as well,
with signs that read “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But somewhere along the
way, this idea that beauty was past the surface, was dropped. For most girls
(and guys), the idealized image of beauty is to look like the model, Gisele
Bündchen or soccer superstar, David Beckham. Drastic measures are taken to
obtain this idealized image of beauty. Eye brows are waxed, faces re-sculpted,
breast enhanced, and extreme dieting measures taken. But what if beauty truly
is “what’s on the inside that counts?”
Once
the superficiality of looks and images are cast aside, beauty becomes something
much more capturing and intimate. Ask any man truly in love with his wife what
makes her most beautiful and I doubt he would say her looks. Actress Amanda
Peet, puts it well “Beauty is only skin deep. If you go
after someone just because she's beautiful but don't have anything to talk
about, it's going to get boring fast.” Beauty
is the mother who hasn’t slept in weeks but still gets up in the middle of the
night to check on her sleeping baby. Beauty is the flower that grows through
the weeds, or even the weeds themselves, that have suffered much and still
manage to grow. Beauty is the stars in the sky, which manage to shine bright,
even on the darkest nights. Beauty is the giggle of a baby. Beauty is you.
In
a society where so much focus is place on beauty, it’s dangerous to break away
from the norm. Putting focus on looks
isn’t bad but the real danger comes when outer beauty is placed on a much
higher pedestal. True beauty is more than a size two jeans or having the
clearest skin. Beauty is generosity and good will to neighbors. Beauty is a
smile. Beauty is dancing in the rain. Beauty is not caring whose watching.
Beauty is confidence. Beauty is you.
Sometimes
true beauty is hard to come by. It’s not easy to discover what true beauty is
because, often the definition of it is so obscure. Conformity and fitting in is
most important to the superficial idea of beauty, but true beauty is much more.
True beauty is the willingness to take a stand for something, it’s the ability
to laugh and be real. True beauty can’t be confined to a set of standards in
which a few select people decide what’s beautiful and what’s not. Beauty isn’t
pain. It doesn’t require lipstick. It doesn’t need to be bought. Beauty only
needs to be brought out into the open. Beauty from the inside isn’t a norm in
society. Walls have to be torn down. People need to see that beauty is more
than being voted sexiest man or women alive. Those who go against the norms of
society have always been thought to weird or strange but who know, maybe once
and for all, it truly will be “what’s on the inside that counts.”
Check out http://www.operationbeautiful.com/ to see more beauty focused on the inside!
