beauty

“Pretty hurts, sang Beyoncé. But as the front facing flash hit my face after another night of rejection, I wonder: does ugly hurt more?”   – I read this last week as I was scrolling through my twitter timeline and it has been stuck with me for the last few days.

When I read this quote the thing that sticks out to me the most is not rejection, it’s actually love. Not love from your crush or from your followers, rather love that you give yourself and feed your soul. People are born with certain things, some born with small noses, some with large, some are born with tan skin, some are born pale. But to me, at least, nobody is born pretty or ugly. Yes. people have natural beauty, but everyone has that potential quality. The beauty that you choose to create within reflects on the outside and creates natural, untouched beauty.

The concept of beauty is something that our society has created and crafted into a lifestyle. In society’s eyes, a life of beauty is a life full of glamorous trips, fame, a hot date to show off, and riches. But what happened to a life full of beauty from within. A life where kindness is contagious and you can’t help but smile. Where your friends want to hangout with you because you make them happy, not because it makes their social blade stronger. Beauty that is formed from inside and radiates to others.

Back to the quote. Why should beauty=pain. (Now trust me when I say that i use that phrase every time i get my brows done, or break my nail.) The painful beauty is the heartbreak that goes alongside achieving your desired point of beauty. This could mean hanging around people who are no good for you and constantly make you feel worse about yourself, but you keep them in your life because you know you would be nothing without them.

I’m happy to say that I don’t have that in my life as of now. Though, I’ve faced it before, and I’m bound to face it again. At the end of the day, pretty should not mean pain. Ugly should not be the opposite. In fact, the opposite is quite different. The opposite of pain is happy, and that’s all that matters. When you are happy, you are beautiful. A wise friend told me the other day, “I’d rather be called beautiful than anything else” and I’d have to agree. So why don’t we call ourselves beautiful?

FAB