Vanity Sanity

I think I’m beautiful. But maybe I’m not. What’s beautiful to some is not beautiful to others. The very worst thing to do – which I just did - is to say you’re beautiful, because then people will really come down on you. No you’re not! You’re bragging about yourself! I’ll bet you think you’re better than me! Whether or not they say they’re beautiful, good-looking people get a lot more flack than they deserve. They are judged by others as superficial; so “into their looks,” they don’t care about anybody else; narcissistic; “stuck” on themselves; vain; and arrogant.

Unfortunately, in some cases, this is true. But like any prejudice, condemning all on the basis of a few is simply ignorant.

I’ve always deeply appreciated beauty in any form, having been born with artistic/aesthetic sensibilities. As young as six or seven, I can remember how I admired the shining yellow locks and enormous violet eyes of the Goldilocks pictured in one of my favorite storybooks. My image of feminine beauty was likely taking shape even before that age. Always I preferred my blond-haired dolls to the brunette ones (my own hair was disappointingly brown). As regards body size, it was pretty obvious that Nancy Drew, Cinderella, the girls in The Brady Bunch, and the most popular girls in my class at school were not overweight.

Society’s beliefs about who is beautiful are evident even to the very young. At that tender age, we absorb what we see and hear, along with related qualitative judgments. With all the outside influences, it seems impossible not to equate particular varieties of hair color, body size, and skin quality with health, beauty, and ultimately, goodness and success.

Every single one of us struggles with aspects of the physical ideals. We’d like to have a clear, smooth complexion, but are plagued by chronic acne. We’d like our bodies to be thin, toned, or curvaceous, but aren’t willing to change our eating or exercising habits. Our noses are too big, our hair is thinning, and our teeth are crooked. The number or degree of our aberrations from the ideal seem so overwhelming at times, many of us give up trying to address them and simply accept them as part of who we are. Or maybe we are fortunate enough to never feel self-conscious about any of our personal attributes, or lack thereof, in the first place.

The extent to which we care – or don’t care – about our physical appearance is yet another trait, but a character trait instead of a bodily one. If we have concerns about how we look, we’ll put time and effort into modifying what we can. Obviously it follows that those who don’t put stock in physical beauty will be unmotivated to make changes. Caring and not caring about physical appearance are two different attitudes, and one is not necessarily superior to the other.

People who are truly comfortable with who they are – including those who accept themselves whatever they look like – will not criticize or judge someone who possesses more of the features society considers beautiful. It never fails for me that the more critical I am of other people, the unhappier I am with something about myself. Taking a hard look at why I’ve ever held a negative attitude toward someone because they were attractive, I’d have to admit that much of this was simple jealousy on my part.

Therefore, I might as well put my focus in the right place: on me. Sometimes all I can do about the parts of me I don’t like, is change my attitude toward them. Accept them. This also applies to unattractive character traits like jealousy, by the way. In my experience, once I air out the “ugly” and hard-to-accept facets of myself – physical or attitudinal - they begin to lose their power over me. This clears the way for addressing them, perhaps even ridding myself of the troubling ones.

I used to feel very guilty about the fact that after turning 40, I decided to get Botox injections to combat the ever-encroaching wrinkles on my face. My early programming caused me to condemn this practice as vain and unnecessary (even though I did it anyway). After all, shouldn’t I be using that money for something more meaningful or important, like household upkeep or décor, buying my kids better quality clothes, or future college tuition?

It took me a long time to get rid of the martyr mentality and change my view on investing in my appearance. Now I trust myself enough to realize that putting a reasonable amount of money toward things that help me feel good about myself is a form of healthy self-care, not self-absorption.

I treat myself to cute clothes, too, because they make me feel attractive. And by “cute,” I mean form-fitting. Since I’m blessed with the willingness to run over 20 miles per week for exercise, feeling good about my body size is a perk accompanying the bigger rewards of fitness and health. Admittedly, sometimes looking good (and eating more!) are foremost in my mind, but why over-analyze my motivations if the end result is healthy?

Self-care is a privilege for which I’m grateful, not the selfish demonstration of vanity I used to think it was. Beauty often is a by-product of self-care, but so are health and vitality. For me, “it’s all good,” as they say, so I don’t waste time with guilt about it anymore.

If I had a flourishing garden in which I took great pride because it produced a paradise of flowers, would I not invest effort into maintaining it? You bet I would! If I didn’t, I’d lose something I valued, including the pure joy of seeing those blossoms. So it is with me: if I truly appreciate the parts of me that are beautiful, I will do what is needed to maintain and nurture them. And if that means hair-coloring, exercise, Botox, and regular examinations of conscience, so be it! Because I think that beauty, like life itself – is nothing less than a gift intended for our free and limitless delight.