What really is beauty?
11:28 AMYou know the scenario. You are walking through the store and you go to check out. As you are standing in line you look to your left (or right) and see all these magazines. With these gorgeous girls. Gorgeous people.
So if you are anything like me it is all to easy to compare ourselves. Especially when the featured model is a Mama of three months and looks like she never gave birth-let alone gained weight over a nine month period!
But here is a question:
How much of that is real?
Here is a movie that I recently re-discovered and thought it would be good to share it once again.
Can you believe that???
You can watch it again if you are in as much shock as I was the first time I watched it!
I don't know about you but-it makes me feel a little bit better when I realize that those pictures and billboards...most of them are NOT REAL. They are powdered and squeezed and spend hours getting make-up and hair PROFESSIONALLY done and THEN-they are photo shopped till, in all honesty, the original person does not really even exist anymore because they had to be made "perfect" according to the world's standards.
Now, does this mean that we do not make an attempt to dress nicely and take care of ourselves? No. But it is nice to realize that these models we hold ourselves up to so often...most the time they are normal people...they are real too and nine times out of ten-even they do not look like the photo shopped pictures of themselves.
So what is beauty?
What does the Bible say about beauty?
I googled that and found a really neat list of Bible verses HERE. Below are some that ministered to me:
1 Peter 3:3-4 ESV
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.
Psalm 139:14 ESV
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
So what are your thoughts?
What are some of your thoughts on beauty?
Do you ever struggle with comparing yourself to others?
Do you have any lessons you have learned along the way to share?
I would love to hear them! :)
4 Thoughts
I do believe that beauty is not subjective but objective - we can measure "beauty", such as the symmetry of a face and so on.
ReplyDeleteHowever, beauty is not just math. There's a one liner about it "Your character makes you really ugly", I think that is true. While an objectively beautiful person may still look good, a spiteful character will make them ugly and so, even if they are objectively pretty, you don't want to spend time with them.
Likewise, being a loveable person will make people want to be friends with you, no matter how you look.
Unfortunately we are raised to believe in outward beauty, especially girls. They often aren't praised as much for doing something nice, good, smart or in the right moment as they are praised by people saying "What a pretty girl you are!". I think it's important to train your kids that outward beauty is a great thing, but at the end of the day, it gets you nowhere you want to be.
Whenever I see women covered in layers of make up, they sports steeled bodies and pretty much in a bikini, I sometimes think "I wonder if she was good at math".
Good looks vanish so fast and are so much work to have (think all the workout!), but intelligence, learnedness and good character stay. It's important not to treat little girls as "cute pretty princesses" all the time, but rather reward them for things that will help them later in life.
As for myself, I struggled for the longest time... The first 22 years of my life, hah! It was hard to come to terms with the fact that I AM a pretty person in my own way. I made many mistakes because I thought I didn't measure up. I'm so glad I got through those very hard lessons and can finally love myself the way I am. There's nothing worse than having your own body for an enemy.
I have a friend who is an internationally well-known plus-sized model. She and I have children the same age and we attended a co-op preschool together when the kids were really little. She is someone you have seen on billboards at Macy's and Land's End and a number of other common stores, and she's been on the cover of magazines. And she's BEAUTIFUL. And she's been all over the world to be photographed. But she says every single model and every photograph taken is airbrushed and made to look like what the publisher wants and not actuality. So, all the magazines get exactly what they want because they have good stock to start with and then genius Photoshop artists to "clean it up". It's crazy to think even for a moment that we would want to emulate any of those models, but of course it is part of our culture. I just wanted to share this because if you knew any of the people you see in magazines in real life, you would realize they don't really look like that.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tumblr.com/blog/theperfectiondeception
ReplyDeleteWonderful post! :) The link above is for my Tumblr that is dedicated to Society's messed up view of beauty/happiness/being "good enough" I have actually posted that you tube video on there!!
p.s. loving the new look of the blog!
http://theperfectiondeception.tumblr.com/
ReplyDeleteI sent the wrong link! this is the right one! :)
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