Project 31: Day 6: Jaded Beauty

Day 6. Jaded beauty. Has the world's definition of beauty ever jaded you?

Not really. Ok, that's not true. But really, I don't have any dramatic stories of how I used to want to look like exactly like gorgeous celebrities in magazines and how I've overcome that. I don't have a specific story to relate. But I think as women, we all struggle with wanting to change our appearance to some degree. We aren't satisfied with the way we look. We're too heavy, too thin, too short, too tall, too light-skinned, too dark-skinned, too plain, too curvy, too flat-chested, too something. I don't know a woman of any age who doesn't want to change or improve herself physically in some way.

While sometimes that is a good thing, most of the time it's not. We put too much pressure on ourselves to change ourselves for the wrong reasons. We don't love the skin we're in. I was thinking about this while I was driving a few days ago, and I concluded that we aren't born with this view of ourselves. As small children, we couldn't care less how thin, tall, or tan we are. We play with our friends, oblivious to how their appearance compares to ours. But as we grow, we learn from our culture to start comparing ourselves to other women. And something happens that makes us want to be someone we're not.

My face is too round. My legs are too short. My ears are too small and flat. My nose turns up on the end and wiggles when I talk. My stomach is too flabby. My hips are too wide. I have weird combination skin (both dry and oily).

We all do it. The details may be different, but we all have issues with ourselves. But it takes strong encouragement from loving parents, husbands, friends, etc. to break us of this. It takes us learning to see ourselves as God's princesses and wanting to improve ourselves because we want to be more like Him, not because we compare ourselves to others and want to look like them. It has taken me a long time to learn that. I have learned to embrace the things I cannot change, or if not embrace them, ignore them. The things I can change, I have learned to improve them because it is what is best for me and not out of a desire to be someone I'm not.