Beauty and The Teen

"I'm so ugly!"
"My freckles are terrible."
"I'm fat and to lose weight, I barely eat anything anymore."
"Why couldn't I just have been born beautiful?"
"I hate to go to school because I have to show my face to my friends."

These are the words of teenagers.

I see kids playing in the playground... Happy five-to-six-year-old children... laughing, giggling, smiling, sharing, bickering, enjoying... splashing in mud puddles, making sand castles, driving fantasy race cars... Oh if only everyone could be that happy and natural.

I see teenagers... examining themselves closely in the mirror, worrying that there is something wrong with the way they look... comparing themselves to their friends.

I see teenagers... dour, walking with their heads down so no one could see... hiding themselves... skipping meals... admiring pictures of supermodels that are splashed everywhere, wishing to look like them... closing up in their rooms... crying...

I'm sitting here, in front of my computer screen - just another teenager, sometimes having those same mind-sets - wondering... What happened? There has got to be something wrong... somewhere...

Why are little children so well-liked, why is it good to be a child at heart, why is it so that children seem the happiest with themselves, having no worries, being naive and genuine and not afraid to be themselves? Of course, a big part of it is just that they don't have to face the worrying yet - they could not do it and that is why their parents are there, to let them be kids. But still, most of it is in their "child's heart". They do not think about things like "appearances" and "model-bodies" and "looking good". They are accepted, because as young children, they are exposing to the world their true selves, never feigning or pretending. They are just, purely yet so prudently, being themselves, without even thinking about it. Don’t you wish to be among them?

When we grow older, we start to assemble around ourselves something that I like to call "layers", that are prejudiced and casted by the world outside us. When we are not small children anymore, we no more see the world from a small child's viewpoint where the axis of everything is just "feeling good". What is becoming more and more important to us when we begin to grow up is how we look like in the eyes of others, and what others may think about us. It is normal to start looking at the world and ourselves in a different way, as it is part of the growth - when we mature, we change.

But maybe we change just a little too much. I don't know why that happens - maybe the world around us has changed and is now moulding our layers too radically. But, when we find that we are no more happy, we, no matter what the reason, should realize that the change indeed was too deep-seated. And we need to go back. We should look under those layers, and bring to facade that little child inside us, the one that was blissful, without worries. And then we should have a talk with the child within us and learn from it. Learn a new way to look at our manifestation. One that is maybe not completely the "me-centered" way of a young child, but definitely not the "I-look-terrible" way either. A fresh system, something in between.
Everyone should do this... because, for some reason, almost no one is satisfied with the way she or he looks. And it really isn't the outside that needs change, but the way we look at ourselves. In this way, almost everyone is "conceited". Everyone is only focusing on how they look themselves, noticing so many things wrong with themselves. And when everyone is doing that, there should be nothing to worry about, since no one else will notice how you look, anyway. Appearances don't mean anything in life... The way you look is something you were born with, but it doesn't tell anything about the real you. We are so hard on ourselves when we look in the mirror, thinking everything looks off beam and gross...

But it doesn't. Have an easy smile on your face, and it lights up your whole reflection. Everyone is beautiful when they learn to be kind to themselves... Everyone who smiles is beautiful.... Everyone who gives a hug is beautiful... Everyone who loves is so beautiful that it can't be put into words.

Obsession with self-image is a terrible weakness. It makes one look at oneself instead of at the crisis. Exterior show is a meager proxy for inner merit. It’s a true fact that most of us work harder to seem happy that in actually requires for being happy. We try to debug our image rather that our selves. But we live in a world of pseudo-events, celebrities, dissolving forms and faint but overwhelming images, we mistake our shadows for our selves which seem more genuine than reality. We clutch at shadows as if they were matters, and slumber deepest while fancying ourselves most awake. It’s a million times better to emerge untrue before the world than to be untrue to us. Remember everything that glitters isn’t gold? Well, believe it or not, but it’s very proper. Many a rosy apple is putrid to the core. The world may seem to be better off than you…but things aren’t what they seem; or to be more precise, they aren’t only what they seem, but very much else besides. Trust me, don’t appear to others what you’re not. Remember God doesn’t judge us by our looks…they judge us by our heart.

Things are beautiful if you love them. In fact, everything is beautiful in this world…except what we ourselves think and do when we overlook the higher rationales of life and our own human decorum. According to Kahlil Gibran, beauty is when life unveils its holy face. It’s simply in the eye of beholder. Don’t try to be the person who only looks beautiful but are actually not. You know, some things are more beautiful when they’re left flawed than when too highly finished. An approach of demeanor, a standard of restraint, resilience and veracity can do wonders to make you beautiful. Beauty is the blossom of virtue, ethical element and desirable qualities. It doesn’t only address itself to sight, but also to hearing. Certain mishmash of words, music, melody, cadence, rhythms and harmony are much more than just beautiful. Minds that boost themselves above the sphere of sagacity to a higher order are sentient of beauty in the conduct of existence, in events, in characters, in the chase of the intelligence.

You know what this teenager, who has those same unhappy thoughts about her sometimes too, does now? She gets up from her chair... and she looks in her mirror. After staring at her mirror image for a minute - and who knows, maybe talking with that little child inside her… she finally gives in. She sighs and, tentatively at first but with more and more poise every jiffy, she lets a big smile stretch across her face. A fantastic heart makes a fantastic face…yeah?

Much better.