Life Fright

Let’s face it. Attractive people do enjoy certain perks and advantages that the rest of us can only fathom and look on in envy. Whether that’s getting hired for a job among candidates of similar or better qualifications or getting free stuff, the list goes on. However, that’s not to say there’s no point for the rest of us to not pursue our goals and work out our issues.

Everyone has their own problems that they are dealing with big and small. While it may be easy to just ignore said issues and bury our heads in the sand, that only delays the inevitable mad rush to tackle them when those issues become unavoidable. Talking more surface level, appearance is such a subjective lens to evaluate and it varies from person to person, culture to culture, and society to society. It doesn’t help that we have social media and the news blaring the latest new beauty standards while advertising the quick fixes to enhance our own features. It only gets more invasive. First we’ve got skincare, then makeup, beauty rollers, face masks, facials, etc. Then nonsurgical options like fillers, botox, and PRP. And finally the more risky plastic surgery.

And all of this has become more normalized and accepted as typical upkeep costs to preserve our youthfulness and peak attractiveness for as long as possible before the claws of old age grab hold of us. We all know that beauty fades at some point, but when does it end and at what cost?

Most of us don’t have the means to go for these high maintenance options to be low maintenance thereafter. But that doesn’t mean that we should completely forgo doing anything and most of us can’t even entertain that possibility since the pressure to look a certain way is key to fitting in and becoming accepted by society. Whether that awareness is conscious or not, it is ingrained in us. In the end, trying to put forth the best of ourselves matters. It may not pay off immediately and it may not seem that much has changed, but cue the time jump to 5 years or even 10 years from now, the difference can be drastic.

I’m not saying that we should all go forth with all the beauty options presented to us and do everything that we can afford. That isn’t feasible and it’s not for everyone. What should be prioritized are our strides to improving our health and the areas that relate to that. More specifically, areas like fitness, dental health, mental acuity, gut health, diet, hygiene, skin health, posture, etc should be the focus. And focusing on re-evaluating our state in regards to those aspects lends to our overall attractiveness and more importantly our well being. The long-term effects of this just compounds from the small bits of effort made every day. I don’t think there exists a real shortcut akin to snapping our fingers and seeing an immediate change when starting from a suboptimal place. It takes work and effort to develop beyond that to see real long-term results. Taking small steps forward and trying is the key!