You Are Beautiful

I think we as a society have a very distorted image of beauty. We'll look at houses or old brick buildings and say, "What a beautiful building!" But what about the beautiful trees and grass they destroyed to create that building? Was their beauty not adequate? Or we'll look at someone who might be overweight and insecure about themselves, and so they start working out and eating healthy. That's a great thing! But we only acknowledge their beauty once they start to lose weight, instead of making sure that they know they're beautiful no matter what their size. Let's look at this contrast: a girl walks into a restaurant wearing jeans that flatter her body, new heels, a fancy shirt, jewelry, hair curled and makeup done perfectly vs. a girl who walks into the same restaurant wearing sweats and a t-shirt. Which one do we automatically think is beautiful? The girl who is all done up, "perfect". Or what about girls who wear low cut shirts, showing off their cleavage constantly vs. girls like me who wear tops that do not show my cleavage or big, baggy t-shirts? Which girl are the guys going to look at and think is attractive? The one wearing close to nothing or the one who is trying to be modest? Chances are, they would pick the girl with cleavage over me. And I'm fine with that, because I believe that you get who you dress for. If you dress like a slut, you're gonna get a guy who wants a slut. Let's weigh the options of makeup. I don't wear a lot of makeup, mascara is it, but one day I decided to wear eyeshadow and eyeliner as well. And you know what happened? I got so many compliments on how pretty I looked that day. And it made me upset! What happened to natural beauty?? When did our view of beauty stray so far from what actual beauty is?
I wish that we lived in a society where everyone thought they were beautiful. No, where everyone knows that they are beautiful!! Do you know how much the rates of anorexia or other eating disorders, teen pregnancy, cutting, suicide, depression, anxiety and heartache would go down? Maybe that girl who everyone sees as "plain" because she's a normal body type so no one tells her how beautiful she is won't stop eating because she thinks that being skinnier will make her more beautiful. Maybe that girl whose boyfriend only ever tells her how hot or how sexy she is but never calls her beautiful will stop trying to please him by having sex with him to keep him interested in her because she thinks that she's not good enough. Maybe that girl that suffers from constant depression and anxiety from the words that people say, or don't say, will stop cutting her wrist to turn the emotional pain into something she can physically feel and see. Maybe that girl who has a different boyfriend every week would gain confidence in herself and who she is to the point of waiting for the boy who will love her forever, and not just until he sees another girl walk by. Maybe if we all regularly heard the words "You are beautiful" on a regular basis, all of these things could happen. Maybe if we saw beauty for what it really is, and not for the fake mask we've put on the word "beauty", all of these things could happen.
So please, I beg you, tell someone they're beautiful today. And always remember, that you are beautiful, always.

God bless you, beauties.
Ariel