What is beauty? Every year we wait to see the Forbes most beautiful people list, we look at magazines and see models, celebrities and media personalities flaunting beauty each day and admire in awe. However the question remains: what is beauty? Over the decades the concept of beauty has changed drastically and no longer is beauty just a “look” it is the culture, it is what society’s standards are. Is the ideal beauty tall and slim? Athletic build and curvaceous? Narrow or broad faced? Large or Small lips? Dark or Light hair? Lighter or darker complexion? It is all about what we internalize based on our experiences: I have realized that it is all about perspectives. A perspective according to the Cambridge English Dictionary is a particular way of viewing things that depends on one’s experience and personality.
This means that simply looking at something that is pleasing to the eye cannot be the only definition of beauty. Beauty then becomes more than what meets the eye when perspective comes in. Something does not have to look nice to be beautiful.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”’-Margaret Wolf Hungerford
There are many non-physical aspects of beauty and this is what makes things, people, and life beautiful. Our perspective on life and those non-physical aspects of beauty makes life even more beautiful. There are things that are “pretty” but definitely not beautiful and “ugly” things that we can see beauty in. It then brings the question: How do we see life, people, and things? Are they beautiful or are we seeing ugly everywhere we go? What is your perspective? Studies have shown that it is our perspective that affects our level of happiness with the world and with ourselves. The common link or element to a happy life then becomes our perspective. This is the reason why a pretty life can be an unhappy one an outwardly ugly life can be pleasant.
People with a positive outlook on life tends to see more beauty in the world because they view the world from a positive mindset because they pick out the positive things and focus their time and efforts on them, and then seeing the ‘ugly” or negative things and finding the positive in them. This is very important for us to think about as this has a major impact on our lives, your perspective on life fundamentally affects we view the world and that means it fundamentally affects where we are in life, our level of happiness and satisfaction within ourselves. Powerful.
How many of us focus too much time and efforts focusing on society’s standards of beauty and fall into a life of spending thousands of dollars on cosmetics, plastic surgeries, waist trainers, apparel, and the list goes on and on. Despite this, many of us still cannot seem to find happiness for ourselves. Are the Kardashians of our society any happier than the tribes of people living in the mountains of Indonesia? It is all about perspectives. Since we have now realized that our perspective has a big impact on how we view the world and possibly how satisfied or happy we are, how can we work on making this work for us? What does this all mean to us as individuals?
From reading this article so far, it is now obvious that since beauty is based on perspective, it means that there is no place on this earth that beauty cannot be found.
Here are six things you can do to change your perspective and find happiness:
- The next time you leave your house, or see people take a note of everything. Take a look at the trees, the sky, listen to the birds and observe the small things of nature with your inner and outer eyes.
- Take a look at the smiles of people you pass, the handshakes, gestures of people and consider empathy while you wonder what they are thinking and experiencing and look at all the wonderful things about them that you are experiencing in that moment.
- When you listen to a conversation, take in the tone of voice and try to find the positive things from the communication that can be focused on and find opportunities in the “ugly” parts.
- Get a gratitude journal and record in it at the end of each day all of the things that you were grateful for. Try to have a goal in mind each week and increase the number of expected items you intend to have on the sheet week by week. You will be surprised at all the new things you will find beauty in.
- Always assume the best in situations instead of the worst, look at everything from the positive perspective if it is negative until you have been proven wrong. That way your brain will form the habit of thinking positive first. If the information is indeed negative, then come up with positive solutions to overcome the obstacle.
- You are beautiful. You just are, and it is inescapable. We are all beautiful in our own way and anyone who cannot see your beauty needs to change their perspective, not for you to change your image.
So what is beauty? The answer is simple: everything is beautiful, it is just the way we look at it or in other words or “perspective’.” That is part of what Simply Organic Ally is all about, looking first at the simple solutions to life’s complexities without the extra additives?
Much Love,
Ally
Oh, I almost forgot! Thank you to Caseapp for inspiring this post after making this beautiful phone case just for me! Use the discount code: SIMPLYALLYCAKES20 until 2/8/19 for 20% off your own custom designed phone case:
exceptional