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Ban beauty standards! I come from a line of women who look like a million bucks. I don't even thread my eyebrows. If I can handle the pressure, so can you!
Ban beauty standards! I come from a line of women who look like a million bucks. I don’t even thread my eyebrows. If I can handle the pressure, so can you!
I always need something done, like the color of my hair, get rid of body hair, some acne, at times I am too thin or get a little pudgy around the corners. My hair is rarely in place. Well, of course, there are days when I clean up well, but mostly, I forget or not care enough.
This makes the women around me very uncomfortable, followed by endless comments and instructions about every detail of my look. It is almost all women, and a fair share of men, thanks to the new generation of metrosexuals. It did not affect me till my nine-year-old niece started doing it. This woke me up. It made me wonder if we are being taught the right things or are we telling women that looking good all the time is a mandate. And what if they cannot?
Here are my 7 reasons why we should let go of society’s beauty standards!
We cannot look good or our best at all times. We go through different phases in life, like mourning a relationship, adapting to a new change in life, battling through a tough phase, or trying to find purpose in our life.
Do I care how my hair looks at that time? No, and neither should you. In my case, I was discovering my ancestral karma and trying to fix it. I even attempted to teach a zillion other people about it.
It is tough to do that, and people want me to do it while looking like a celebrity. Strange! Sometimes looking good is not a priority, and that is completely alright.
I cannot agree more with my all-time favorite author Roald Dahl when he says, “If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams, and you will always look lovely.”
Teaching your child only about outer beauty is wrong. I am not saying you should not teach them basic hygiene or how to brush their hair. But teach them about inner beauty and values as well.
Can you stay with a gorgeous person devoid of kindness for long? They will start looking very ugly to you real soon. But if you live with a kind person, their warmth and love will make them look beautiful to you.
Stop telling people how they should look in order to be loved. You will always look lovely to someone who truly loves you. A mother is always the most beautiful to her child as there is unconditional love there.
So, by looking extra you will only attract an extra shallow person, not love. I am not against looking good, do it for yourself if you wish to. Why makeovers help you find someone is because it changes your value in your eyes. I am a sucker for transformations but inner transformations top outer any day.
Looking perfect all the time is very time-consuming and expensive. That is one of the reasons I am not able to do it. I like to learn new things and I have to meditate, write, make money, and do a zillion other things.
Every day I do not have the time. But If you have it, great, go for it. But I would recommend that trying to look perfect is mostly in vain and people are never pleased, so rather do things that will make you enjoy the different phases of your life. And there will still be days when you can look gorgeous and all that money you save, you can use it to travel. I do.
I do not like to follow the implicit beauty standards that are in place. For example, I have wavy hair and women are always after them. They want me to straighten my hair, like decide on my body!
It is a small thing but if I let them, they might even want to make decisions about my life . It’s really important to make your own decisions even related to your looks as it can lead to bigger things in life. Trust me, don’t go down that rabbit hole of trying to please others with how you look and behave.
When you meet a friend after a long time, take note of what you say to them. It is so deeply ingrained in us, even I do it. We talk about their weight or point out their beauty flaws or at our least, we compliment them about a physical feature.
This got to stop ladies (and gents). Please ask them about their hopes, goals, aspirations, issues, and what are they trying to overcome in life? Ask about what is making their eyes twinkle so much. Be nice to each other, we all have mirrors and already know our flaws. Someone might be struggling with it.
Love the way someone is handling herself or glowing crazily. Ask them how they do it, and start doing some of it. Don’t compare yourself to them and drown in self-hate.
If you want something, go after it. Self-love takes you much farther and it’s easier frankly.
Also, ask yourself again what you are going after, is it really what you wish for? Don’t get carried away because another is looking good while doing it.
I feel once we stop comparing with each other in general, we start looking better as we realize our good features and we can highlight them. Still, inspiration is good.
I can say a lot about this but instead of chasing after impossible beauty standards, if you chase your dreams, it will make you much happier and richer in the long run.
I feel by engaging in this always looking good business, where we run after this mirage constantly but are still dissatisfied, we lose sight of important things and also, we fail to enjoy some really important phases of our lives. After all, beauty lies in the journey, not the destination.
P.S. I live in India and I have never threaded my eyebrows, if I can handle that pressure, so can you!
Image source: Still from Love You Zindagi
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