Beauty Queen?

I've recently begun reading a abulous book from the much dreaded and avoided "Self Help" Aisle in Barnes and Noble: "Beautiful You" by Rosie Molinary. Its a book that allows you, in 365 steps, to aquire more self-esteem and to love you the way you are. Yes dear readers, i have issues too. :)

In any case, she proposed the following task: Write down what you feel makes a perosn beautiful. I did. You want to know what i wrote? "Confidence, a great smile, laughter, grace, warmth, " Notice how all of these things have nothing to do with the way that someone looks? With the way that their body lookr or the way that they dress? This got me thinking about something else: If we percieve beauty to be about interior things, then why do we bother to turn ourselves into the person we feel we should LOOK like?

I was into a guy once that loved it when i straightened my naturally curly and unruly hair. Previosuly, i used to straighten my hair on occasion i.e. a night out on the town or Christmas, but now i found myself doing it ALL THE TIME when i felt like i had the chance of bumping into him. Im a high-heels girl- i feel like im short so i try to wear my "stilts" as often as i can. When my crush said that he loved me in Ballerinas- guess what i did? Yep, i wore ballerinas 24/7. I turned myself from the person i was into the person i hoped he'd find attractive. I changed the wasy i look to please a man. I still cringe while writing this.

A few weeks passed and i discovered that the guy wasnt who i hoped he would be. SO guess what i did? I took great care at making my hair as curly as possible and i wore the HIGHEST shoes i owned everytime i would risk being around him. It was my way of demonstrating that i no longer cared about him. This is behaviour that is apparently very common behaviour amongst us humans- males and females alike.

HOWEVER, when we define beauty we define it with interor values such as confidence, charm or great sense of humour. Why is it that we leave aside all that we feel beautiful only to occupy ourselves with exterrior things such as hair and outfits? At the end of the day, all we really want to do is please the person we are into. Thus, we throw overboard all our instincts and better judgements and we turn ourselves into the person we hope they find attractive. Heres the thing: chances are high that they too find people beautiful because they are graceful and confident and less because we wear all stars and slacks.

No matter who the person may be, if they dont find you beautiful because of who you are, they suck. So stop trying to please the other person by turning yourself into someone you're not and embrace what YOU feel is beautiful. Because thats what you are: Beautiful. In every single way possible!!