Be Beautiful – Be Happy

 

After re-sharing that travel journal, I was going to move on from the beauty discussion. But I read a response to the Dove video that inspired more comments. [read response here: Why Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Video Makes Me Uncomfortable…and Kind of Makes Me Angry]. This author conveyed some interesting and valid points about the lack of diversity represented and some of the underlying messages that have the potential to feed into society's view of beauty and worth. But I didn't hear what this author heard in one of the final quotes – the one I highlighted in my first post about this video:

“I should be more grateful of my natural beauty. It impacts the choices and the friends we make, the jobs we go out for, the way we treat our children, it impacts everything. It couldn’t be more critical to your happiness.”

This author commented:

Did you hear that, ladies? How beautiful you are affects everything—from your personal relationships to your career. It could not be more critical to your happiness! And while it could be argued that the woman was actually talking about how you feel about yourself or something, it is clearly edited to suggest that the “it” is beauty.

I believe that what we get out of something we read or see often says more about where we are at individually than about the original intended message. That becomes truth for us, different from others. And that is one of the wonderful things about this world – that we each have a unique viewpoint to contribute to the conversation!

So the message I heard from that quote and the entire video was a reminder: like it or not, the reality is that our perceptions of our own beauty – and perhaps more so, our beliefs about how beautiful others perceive us to be – often do impact the choices and the friends we make, the jobs we go out for, the way we treat our children... your happiness. ...it impacts everything. And what an important, uplifting, empowering realization that others often perceive our beauty differently than we do ourselves – perhaps because they are also experiencing: true beauty [that] shines through the eyes, is heard in the laughter, and felt from the smile of a friendly personality ...experienced in the over-all content, fun-loving, intelligent, peaceful energy flowing through her.

[see “...Be a Beautiful Woman” for more of my comments on true beauty]

In that way, beauty becomes way more than just something that you are. It becomes something that you do. Be [beautiful] is a verb. It takes action. Yes, there is natural (physical) beauty which the woman in the video talks about being more grateful for; but to express that gratitude requires action – whether it is through personal hygiene/style/accessories highlighting the physical; or through the confidence and personality she exudes. Haven't many people – particularly in the dating game – talked about the change in physical attractiveness, for better or for worse, as ones personality begins to shine through?!

The author concludes with a challenge to critical thinking:

What you look like should not affect the choices that you make. It should certainly not affect the friends you make—the friends that wouldn’t want to be in relationship with you if you did not meet a certain physical standard are not the friends that you want to have. Go out for jobs that you want, that you’re passionate about. Don’t let how good looking you feel like you are affect the way that you treat your children. And certainly do not make how well you feel you align with the strict and narrow “standard” that the beauty industry and media push be critical to your happiness, because you will always be miserable. You will always feel like you fall short, because those standards are designed to keep you constantly pressured into buying things like make up and diet food and moisturizer to reach an unattainable goal. Don’t let your happiness be dependent on something so fickle and cruel and trivial.

To some extent I agree with these points. Relying only on the strict and narrow “standard” that the beauty industry and media have defined , we will always be striving for an unattainable goal. But let's rephrase some of them a little:

What you look like should not affect the choices you make...the friends you make – because you feel and do beautiful and confident enough to make choices and friends that enhance your life, true beauty, and happiness;

Go out for the jobs that you want, that you're passionate about – because you feel and do beautiful and confident enough to do so;

...let how good looking you feel like you are affect the way that you treat your children – because you feel and do beautiful and confident enough to want to impart the same beauty and confidence in them;

And certainly do not make how well you feel you align with the strict and narrow “standard” that the beauty industry and media push be critical to your happiness – but be beautiful and confident enough to re-define your perceptions of your own beauty because that will likely impact your happiness.

Rather than trying to turn away from the impact beauty has on our happiness – because I don't really think it's something we can actually get away from in today's culture – let's embrace it, expand on it, grow with it, and become even more beautiful in the true sense of beauty. Because, to edit the final comments of this author's response: 

you are so, so much more than [physically] beautiful.

So Be Beautiful – it might just increase your happiness!