Beyond Fashion...

Beauty is such a complex state of being. To be beautiful is mythic, fictitious - an illusion so to speak. The concept of beauty is very subjective as is apparent in the saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," which is somewhat true if one includes personality, character and the 'it is what is on the inside that counts' clause in the measurement of beauty.

However, I am talking about the superficial definition of beauty – physical beauty. Physical beauty is rare and wonderful, and almost all women work to acquire this. Why? Quite frankly, because beauty presents opportunities and to pretend otherwise is foolish. I am in no way advocating hand-outs based on physical appearance or double standards between the beautiful and unbeautiful. I am basically stating a sad truth which is: looks matter first. However, once your looks have gotten you to the door, you must have something else to offer beyond that – whatever that might be, brains, character...something else. However, it is the getting to the door that I choose to focus on today.

For any woman, being beautiful is a complex business and if one is to be successfully beautiful, like any business it requires vigilance, calculation, and a whole lot of hard work. I am coming to this realization as I am leaving my early twenties ;-) (with every passing year, there is only one secret I am learning to keep – the secret of my age) that things that came naturally in the past are becoming strange bedfellows to me.

Going are the days when I thought I would never weigh more than 120 – no matter how hard I tried to gain the weight. Going are the days where my skin glowed with the exuberance of youth and lack of responsibilities. Going are the days where the only reason I needed to wake up before 9 was for class and even then I could choose not to go without the fear of unemployment. Going are the days where the question was not "to be or not to be," but rather "to buy a new outfit or not to buy." *Sigh. *

Those days are gone.

Appearance involves calculation. Now, I pay more attention to what I eat, I actually go running not only because I enjoy doing it, but also because it is becoming a necessity. The word diet has been added to my vocabulary, I pay an unhealthy attention to beauty product labels now and I take my vitamins (6 different vitamins daily). You could say I am going through a quarter- life crises but I am not. For me, going through a quarter-life crises would be to buy the car I really want (Mercedes G500) and deal with the financial consequences later. Or you could say I have an 'obsessive-compulsive' disorder, but that is not it either.

It is just that I have embraced the words of Helena Rubinstein that states there are no ugly women, only lazy ones.