external beauty
The Necessity of Beauty
I believe it’s actually wrong for a woman to frequently neglect her appearance, or frequently dress in any way that is unflattering, drab, masculine, distasteful, or (of course) slutty.
Why?
Women were given an incredible gift from God, a gift unique to our gender. It is powerful, gives joy, and heals.
This gift is beauty.
Beauty is possibly one of the most powerful things in the world, after love – if it can even be separated from love. In fact, life isn’t worth living without beauty. Think of nature: the sea, mountains, blue skies and starry nights, flower fields and tropical islands. Or art: music, dance, paintings, poetry. And yet, even more than these things, women are God’s cherry on top – his finishing touch, his aesthetic masterpiece, the most beautiful creation in the world. Beautiful women are such a powerful motivator that countless times in history, and in stories the world over, men have risked their lives to win or rescue beautiful damsels. Beautiful women are an even more powerful motivator for men than honor, prestige, acclaim, or money – and no, it is not just because men want sex. Also, a man truly in love would give up everything in the world for his woman.
And beauty affects not just men, but all people. When a woman embraces her beauty – and remember, true beauty combines a pure, loving heart with a feminine, comely appearance – her mere presence is a light to those around her. She will bring chivalry out in men, maturity and goodness out in children (in the form of respect), and hope and inspiration in other women. Her beauty can also help those in pain: think, for example, of the story of the wounded soldier who asked a nurse simply to apply lipstick in front of him, because the feminine beauty of this act made him peaceful.
The truth is, our beauty is not just a gift to us, or even our man – it is a gift to the world, and it is our RESPONSIBILITY to share this gift.
So, when a woman adopts an unattractive look, she makes herself a less influential person, is treated with less respect and sensitivity, and deprives herself and others of the joy that comes with reveling in her unique beauty.
Of course, outward beauty – a well-groomed, extremely feminine, pretty appearance – is NOTHING without a good character to go with it. However, sometimes you can work on yourself from the outside in. So if you know you need to improve your character – maybe you’re crass, a tom-boy, depressed, or something else unpleasant – try to look externally beautiful, even if you know it doesn’t 100% reflect who you are right now. Dress the way your IDEAL SELF would dress. You’ll slowly start to become that person because people will start perceiving and treating you as that person.
Another excuse many women use to not dress beautifully is to say that they were born too unattractive for beautiful attire and grooming to make much difference. How sad to live life as a woman and believe nothing you do will make you look or feel beautiful. Women were MADE to feel beautiful; this is our natural, ideal state of being. Some of the most awful times in my life have been when I felt extremely unattractive and undesirable, and I doubt I’m alone. This feeling is equivalent to, on the other end of the spectrum, a man feeling like a weak, incompetent failure.
The thing is, most of us NEVER WILL look as good as the women we see on magazine covers. Which means that if we want to view ourselves, and have others view us, as beautiful, we have to have the courage to REDEFINE beauty.
So look at yourself in the mirror, embrace who you are even if you and everyone else knows you aren’t a “classic beauty,” and show the world you don’t care. Show that you think you’re beautiful in your own way, and trust me: people will respect you MORE. Because not only will they see the beauty you see in yourself, but also your courage to defy cultural definitions of beauty and set your own. It always makes me so, so happy to see women who don’t fit the classic “beauty” ideal strutting their stuff in beautiful, feminine clothing. The curvy, full-figured woman whose feminine clothes fit her well and show off a feature she obviously loves, such as her cleavage; the flat-chested woman who wears a bikini with absolute confidence; the woman with braces who sports huge, happy smiles for photos; the older woman whose stylish clothes reflect her sass and love for life.
Effort is also a huge matter in beauty, and is sometimes all that’s required to look and feel more beautiful than we ever thought we could. My fiance finds me so beautiful – the reality is, I work HARD to be beautiful for him! I wasn’t born a model, and my face is pretty plain (to me, anyway:P). But I put time into building a wardrobe full of pretty, feminine clothes I feel good in, time into doing my hair and at least a little bit of makeup almost daily. Sometimes I don’t feel like it, but I think of these things as essential now as I do brushing and flossing my teeth. So please, don’t believe you could never look beautiful, that the time and effort would be pointless. Most women are not so unattractive that effort can’t make them beautiful to at least some men. And many women that you think are extremely gorgeous, or at least prettier than you, may not necessarily be. Just search “make-up-free celebrities,” for one. And really, makeup and a nice wardrobe can go SO FAR in influencing how beautiful a person perceives you – I’ve been told I’m prettier than someone I KNOW is actually genetically prettier than me, but because I put more effort into my appearance than that person, I was perceived as prettier.
And because I work to be as pretty as I can, it upsets me when women feel disdain towards other women for being “prettier” than them. I could easily be unattractive if I let myself go; in fact, I’d even say about 50% of my beauty comes from effort. If I let myself go – wore baggy clothes, hardly bothered with my hair, never wore makeup – people wouldn’t look twice at me. Trust me, I’ve been there. But, like all things in life, the best things don’t come easily. I’m proud of how far I’ve come: from a frizzy-haired, sad-looking, oversized sweater-wearing teen with no self esteem, to a stylish, feminine, happily-engaged woman with much more confidence. It didn’t just HAPPEN, it took years of effort.
So ladies, please: care about and take great pride in your appearance. Wear flattering clothing that shows off your beautiful, feminine curves. Wear beautiful colors, feminine articles like dresses, pretty shoes, jewelry. Always look appropriate and never degrade yourself or our gender by revealing too much skin, getting excessive tattoos or piercings, or adopting a strange, distasteful look.
Your beauty MATTERS. It affects others’ moods, the way you are perceived and treated, and the way you feel about yourself. So dig deep, to not only find your inner beauty, but turn it into outer beauty.
What do you think?
Hope this helps!
Love,
Masaleen
The Reality Of External Beauty
[The gorgeous women in this post's corresponding banner - Britney Spears, Rihanna, Jennifer Aniston, and Halle Berry - have all either been dumped, cheated on, divorced, and/or physically abused.]
Recently, Yahoo! shared an article called, Why Beauties Get Cheated On Big Time! To be honest, I was glad to see this. Why? Not because, out of jealousy, thinking about the pain of these women gives me sick pleasure. They’re real women with real feelings. No…it’s because we live in a culture that usually tells women, “If you looked this good, you’d be HAPPY! Every man would want you, and you’d get the guy of your dreams and he’d never leave!”
But the truth is, just being beautiful obviously does not guarantee keeping a man.
If all you want is to GET a man, great! But I can’t guarantee you’ll get a good man, and I can almost guarantee you won’t KEEP any man.
Ladies, is: STOP OBSESSING about being beautiful! Because EVEN IF YOU CAN BECOME AS BEAUTIFUL AS A CELEBRITY, YOU ARE NOT GUARANTEED WHAT YOU’RE REALLY SEEKING: A LOVING, LASTING RELATIONSHIP.
There are much, much more effective steps you can take to basically guarantee you’ll get and keep an amazing man, and none fall under the category of “looking perfect.” Looking pretty is part of it, yes, but not looking “celebrity perfect”, if you know what I mean.
Ladies! Do you think gorgeous female celebrities have the best romantic lives?? Time and time again, we’ve heard about celebrities hooking up, breaking up, hooking up again, and breaking up again…ladies, this is NOT romantic. This is painful. This is sad. I know some of you look up to these women – they’re smart, successful, strong, sassy, sexy, desirable to men…but when it comes to love, they really don’t know much more than you. Maybe less. When it comes to true love, theirs is NOT the footsteps to follow in, unless you want your life to be filled with as much insecurity, short, shallow relationships, and painful breakups as theirs are.
Maybe I’m not being fair by clumping all female celebrities into one, as if they all act the same and have the same problems. Some are worth looking up to. Like:
Jada Pinkett Smith: Married to Will Smith for 11 years
Faith Hill: Married to Tim McGraw for 13 years
Michelle Pfeiffer: Married to David E. Kelley for 15 years
Joanne Woodward: Married to Paul Newman for 50 years!!
But honestly, the famous women many ladies, especially young women, want to be like, and especially want to LOOK like, are the extremely provocative women like Gisele Bundchen, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry, Kim Kardashian, Meagan Fox, Lindsay Lohan, etc.
And yet, a lot of these women are getting dumped over and over again, marrying and divorcing, even getting physically abused. Some are/were anorexic, bulimic, alchoholic, etc. Realistically, these women go through as much pain in love and life as you and me, maybe even MORE, even though/because they’re so beautiful. To be happy in the realm of romantic love, you need to LEARN about love, about the psychology and basic, differing needs of men and women. And really cultivate a beautiful CHARACTER, which is something that will last, unlike a young, hot body. And even the beautiful women who seem to be in a happy relationship now (Angelina Jolie, Gisele Gundchen), who knows what will happen in one, five, ten years? The record of Hollywood couples staying together is EXTREMELY slim. Some you think will stay together, but suddenly it’s over! Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock got cheated on (I think for these two it’s mostly because they picked the WRONG guys, but it is also possible that even though they were good women, they didn’t understand enough the feminine art of love, seduction, and charm, or about men), JLO was married for 8 months, Renee Zellweger for 4 months, Drew Barrymore 30 days. Elizabeth Taylor has been married 8 times, and she’s sometimes considered one of the most beautiful women of all time. Marilyn Monroe married 3 times; her death was most likely suicide, at the age of 36 when she was STILL YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL. Princess Diana was SO BEAUTIFUL….but Prince Charles didn’t even love her.
Yes, this is all sad, but it makes you think twice about the value of external beauty. So if you think being incredibly beautiful will make you happy, and you’re extremely focused on it…what does it mean?
First of all, it means you’re brainwashed. You’ve let media define for you what’s important, what will make you happy, without taking a closer look at reality.
Second, it probably means you’re not ready for a REAL relationship. You’re ready to have steamy sex with hot guys who will boost your ego, but you’re not ready for real heart-connection.
Third, it means you’re scared. You’re scared of responsibility. You’re scared of hard work. You’re scared of changing. Because what’s ACTUALLY harder? Working out, putting on makeup, and donning a sexy dress and heels – OR looking inside of yourself, facing your character flaws and childhood fears, and taking steps to become a new human being, a person of real depth and character?
If you want to be externally beautiful, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s natural and healthy for a woman to want to look beautiful! But, DON’T BECOME OBSESSED WITH LOOKING LIKE A CELEBRITY. Focus, instead, on having a unique, loving personality, and on being a wholesome, healthy beautiful. The latter meaning, don’t undereat (being so skinny that you can’t even get your period…how unfeminine and sickly is that??), don’t overeat, stay flexible, strong, and alert, don’t do ANY kind of plastic surgery and the like EVER, and if you want a tan, go in the SUN, not to fake tanning beds (I personally don’t believe the sun is bad for you, even though doctors have recently been drilling into everyone how dangerous and cancer-causing it is – God CREATED the sun, it’s not evil; plus, it gives you vitamin D; but this is my opinion). Guys love to ogle curvy, lean, busty, beautiful, and yes, even “fake beautiful” women (forgive them, it’s in their biological makeup to at least NOTICE these women), and maybe want to sleep with them, but never do they want to marry her if that’s all she can offer (unless he’s a dummy, and anyway it won’t last long, will it?). And the best guys don’t even want to sleep with her because the best guys have standards. Like waiting for a real, lovely, healthy (in every way) girl he can commit his whole heart and life to. So which girl do you want to be?
Before I conclude, I need to add that being drop-dead gorgeous does NOT mean you CAN’T have a beautiful, sincere, deep love life! There are thousands of beautiful women who could be or are models, but who are also very down-to-earth, humble, genuine, and kind. So this post is in no way about putting down beautiful women, or about saying they’re all shallow types with an inability to develop true, lasting love. The women I’ve mentioned here aren’t necessarily this way. This post is only about proving that external beauty ALONE absolutely cannot guarantee winning and keeping a good man, and that for true romantic happiness there are more important things to focus on.
I hope this helps!
Love,
Masaleen
P.S.: There is an entertaining show out now called True Beauty, where runway-worthy contestants think they’re being judged to see who will become the “Face of Vegas,” but actually they’re being judged for their INNER beauty. Clever, huh?;)
*****
Currently reading: The Act of Marriage (Tim & Beverly LaHaye)
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