On Beauty

The sidebar of a site I was on yesterday got me thinking...

Two words:

Who cares?

Two thoughts:

(First thought)

We are all made in the image of God. He designed and fashioned each one of us - we are all beautiful. Beauty isn't the perfect eyebrows or the right earrings or the skinniest waist or the boyfriend by your side. Yes, there is outward beauty, but beauty is also inside. I have a friend who has CP - she can't control her muscle movements and has been in a wheelchair all her life. She is beautiful. I know a little girl who has had leukemia multiple times. She is smaller than all the other girls her age and doesn't have much hair. She is beautiful, both inside and out.

(Second thought)

Where is our society's focus? Why are there even sidebars on webpages comparing one star's outward beauty to another's? In the whole scheme of things, it's not going to matter if Rihanna was more beautiful than Ciara (or vice-versa).

I'm not dissing outward beauty. I don't think it's wrong to want to be beautiful - to have pretty clothes, or wear makeup, or fix your hair just so - those can be good things! But our perception of beauty today is so awry that we shy away from my beautiful friend with CP and scream and yell for Rihanna. It's hard to flourish in a society that puts so much more emphasis on outward beauty rather than inward, and that's frustrating to me. Can't we just be who we are, without worrying about the pressure and the ideals society has put before us?

Okay, I'm done ranting. =) What do you think?

You can watch another relevant and very interesting video here.