There is a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark
You should know you are beautiful just the way you are…
Oh! If beauty could be that way beautiful. I wish, damn. I just wish to look her way. Isn’t it? That perfect shape, that perfect waist size to follow on with the trending shorts, or that perfect long thighs to show how physically fit I am, and the tone of how my skin glows bright-white or that tight v-neckline to show how I am on with the other peers, right?
The above affirmations may not be the exact but these are the ones that people go through every day. It seems like the term ‘beauty’ has fallen from its place and it is slowly losing its charm. The definition of beauty has changed and objectified into something called human made. People have lost the sense that there is no actual term beauty in anyone and even if there is, to remember that everybody is beautiful of their own kind. Perceiving beauty on an apparent note has made people look down upon themselves and that they are constantly wiping out their natural good traits, striving for those things they don’t own at all and tormenting themselves the way they were born.
It is so disheartening to know how people overlook their qualities, skills just for the sake of being called ‘beautiful’. If beauty could really be objectified, I wonder if our grannies would have been still alive today. If beauty was that way, I wonder if our loved ones wouldn’t have faded away. I wonder, if beauty was that way, our mothers would have not held the spring fetus inside her womb for being born that way. It’s because, for mothers, being born that way doesn’t worry as much as being grown up that way. So, instead of thinking too much about being born that way, it is better to think how being born that way is capable of creating his/her own anomaly.
You may be a little short. So what? Being short doesn’t define who you are or what you are going to do in life. Instead, being short means you are conditioned well to respect your elders, no matter what. You may be extra tall. So what? Being towering tall doesn’t define who you are. Instead, being tall means you are sticking to your values of loving your younger ones. You may be brown. So what? Being brown in color doesn’t make you less of who you are. Instead, it makes you value the other colors in life. You may be skinny. So what? You find confidence in your loose skin and bones. You may be extra healthy. So what? Being extra healthy gives the perfect outlook to your personality and thoughts and that’s the most important thing in your life. You may be born with one hand, with no legs or no hands at all. So what? Everybody isn’t lucky enough as you were, it means you were chosen by god to make a difference in life. Therefore, line up piles of affirmations into your head, and remember every day before you go off to bed in front of the mirror saying, ‘I am beautiful the way I am and I won’t run away from that.
However, beauty isn’t what you perceive, it is rather to be felt and sensed. The true fact is that the era in which we live in is highly influenced by technology and digitalization and so the subjectivity of beauty too. For instance, today, if the advertisements are shown about whitening cream, people tend to feel its benefits right away without any filter of messages. For instance, there are tons of magazines coming out which cover beauty in a different mode, as if beauty is all about having a model suit size type and that skin tone is to be white and at least ‘off white’ if possible. These kinds of ads and magazines fabricate the notions of what beauty actually stands for. The supreme color being white. And that people are soaked into this cycle of getting beautiful, they are letting themselves visit for various surgeries, treatments like Botox, lifting and liposuction which are leaving them with many side effects.
We are living in the same part of society that undervalues people just on the basis of their looks and the way they are born. It is highly unjustifiable to have a people’s skills and talents undermined if they are judged upon only their looks. The subject of beauty has been objectified to a rate that for instance, even a girl gets a rejection from the bridegroom side when she approaches to marry on the illogical ground of ‘stigma of looks’. This type of issues are occurring under the nose of every age group of people that are unpleasantly compelling to think about themselves once more. These acts are no more making them contemplate their flaws but are also allowing negative spaces to fill up. This not only hold back people from potential productivities but also gives them a place to find them faulty leading them to even suicide sometimes.
If these judgment over looks wouldn’t have ever been debated on, we could have probably felt safe and sound to live in a secure environment. And the issues like bullying, acid attack, wouldn’t have happened and deliberately provoking people to go for cosmetic surgeries because it is not in the cosmetic surgery that you find beauty or you get beautiful however, it is the look of yours, your physicality and the way you were born that you find beautiful. Cosmetic surgery may provide you the best service for the moment or for a year, but don’t forget, that is it cosmetic, something that is not natural and things that aren’t natural have a fleeting nature. So, beauty lies not in the cosmetic surgery going for Botox or liposuction, it is in your eyes and the lenses with which you see things around you. Hence, say yes, to your beauty that is already within you, and not in something that you get after doing those surgeries.
So, remind yourself every day when you go off to bed saying, ‘You are beautiful just the way you are’. Trust me, you all are!
Therefore, it is to be rightly said,
“BEAUTY LIES IN YOUR LENSE NOT ON COSMETIC SURGERIES”
By Susmita Aryal
