What makes you beautiful? I was listening to a podcast today talking about beauty and what makes a person beautiful; and I started thinking about it for a moment. Seriously, what does beauty really mean, if it’s different from one place to another! how could it be defined under one global definition, if people could agree on one beauty standard?
In the Middle East for example, A women is considered beautiful if she is tall, has long neck, long dark hair, curvy body, big eyes and fair skin. Even though culture has changed a little, old beauty standards are still the same, overall. But, this comes secondary to personality type, I believe. If a person is beautiful from the outside, yet ugly from the inside, would anyone consider them pretty? I don’t think so!
If a person lacks empathy, kindness, sense of humor, social and emotional intelligence, I strongly believe they are ugly; even if they won a beauty pageant! Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean personality is the only and ultimate beauty measurement, but it is an extremely important aspect of it. In fact, I think beauty standards in every culture were created for marketing purposes. It was introduced to the public by business owners to guide people towards being look-alike through purchasing their merchants. It does not promote individuality, uniqueness and true beauty! Starting from the way people should dress up to the type of materials they should wear. Cheap, expensive, limited edition, fashion forward, are all words and salesmen techniques to encourage people to buy more in order to feel “beautiful.” Whereas, every person who understands their uniqueness and how to embrace it, is beautiful.
There is a thing called “chemistry.” It exists between us and the people we feel comfortable around. it is because of this feelings, we define beauty. Therefore, every human being has a unique definition of beauty. Furthermore, social judgment can play a role in this. For example, some people tend to hide under an umbrella of cultural standards because they may have some fears of being judged by simply disagreeing with social standards. This actually reminds me of an Arabic quote that says: “For every leaf falling, there has to be a ground to catch it.” Meaning, everyone has someone to catch them, there has to be someone out there, always, who see you the most beautiful person that ever existed!
My Name is Haifa 