Land of the Brave has become Land of the Pretty

Any person living in America is under pressure to look a certain way. Men are expected to be tall, buff, and absurdly good looking. Women are suppose to have large breasts, perfect hair/skin/makeup, and skinny. The list of things that our society considers "ugly" is growing faster than what we consider to be beautiful and now we have crossed into the ridiculous. The other week on TV I saw a commercial aimed at women that demonstrated how their new cream would reduce the appearance of UNDERARM DARK SPOTS!! Normally most beauty items make some sense to me. Dark circles under the eye, dark body hair on women, graying hair, etc etc but this one blew me away about how unnecessary it was.

Under no circumstances do I consider the dark spots in my underarms to be ugly. I don't think they are beautiful either. They are just a part of me. I will be the first to admit that I, like many people in America, try to achieve the ideal perfect body. I just started Turbofire by beachbody to help me live healthier and lose weight. I dye my hair. I wear makeup. Heck, I even wear painfully high heels. But I draw the line at what I consider to be absolutely trivial. If someone is looking so closely at my underarms and what spots might be on it, then honestly they can look away and come to whatever conclusion they want. I am not going to give them any further thought after this blog post.

I once heard that a dying society focuses on Beauty of the people within it. I don't know if I believe that but when I see Kim Kardashian getting more attention because she is considered beautiful (when in fact she has a fabulous makeup artist) than those who are actually making a difference like Teachers or Scientists or Humanitarians that is when I start to understand where that person coming from. When we focus of the impermanence of beauty that will fade without the skill of a surgeon instead of lauding those who toil to make contributions that will last longer than their time on earth, how can we be considered the greatest nation on the earth? And the big question to myself, how can I start valuing the real things in life instead of what society tells me to?