God made us according to his image and according to his likeness. Despite that fact, we step foot in this world looking different from each other: different sizes, different skin color, different ethnicity, different eye color, hair color and the list goes on. From the differences, there are people who have won the gene-pool lottery and look stunning for the majority. But there are also people who for the masses are just unfortunate in external beauty.
In modelling, a long neck is very important for a model to look elegant, expensive and also beautiful. This is also somehow similar to Burma. In Burma, the longer the next the more beautiful a woman is. In a very early age, girls start wearing neck rings to make their neck longer. It is worn to constantly stretch and make distance between the shoulder and the head to create a longer neck. And each year, they add more rings on the neck to make it longer and longer and even longer.
If in most countries, slim and lean is beautiful and women go a very long mile to lose weight and achieve their Victoria’s Secret Body goals, it’s a total opposite in Mauritania and some African countries. In this country they view full-figured girls to be more beautiful and more attractive.
If you see someone with a lot of scars on his body we might label the person as a bad guy, a rebel, a criminal or a violent person though this is not the case for some. But In Ethiopia, girls and boys are adorned with scars on their body. This is made as a symbol of strength and an entry to their womanhood and adulthood. If you have these scars, you are more attractive to your opposite sex and you become more of a partner material.
In most countries, if we ever go to any surgery, we are in a hurry to remove surgical bandages. We even remove it earlier than we are supposed to. This is definitely not the case in Iran. For Iranian people some they see bandages on people attractive, they even put up these bandages without the need to do so. They find it is so cool for most people when they see someone with surgical bandages on the face.
A woman becomes more beautiful when she is adorned with creative and decorative patterns all over her body. They call this art as Henna. In India women are adorned with creative and decorative patterns called henna on their skin on celebrations such as wedding which make them more attractive compared to other women from the crowd.
In Aisa, even in the country I live, The Philippines, people prefer pale and white skin. My country is a tropical country and it’s summer the whole year so most men and women, invest a lot in beauty soaps, whitening creams, and etc. to make themselves whiter. Most men and women avoid sun exposure to make sure that they don’t get tanned. This norm is however more common for women but is also a trend for men.
I am not a cookie-cutter and definitely not beautiful in terms of beauty standards, well in my country at least. I've been teased a lot as a child which definitely affected my confidence thinking I am not attractive and I just said to myself; “Okay, I am not facially attractive, so I’ll just focus on being smart”.
Most people would tease me for being too short, for being dark, for having a square face, for having an uneven teeth, for having too big eyes, too thick eyebrows and the list goes on.
But I realized that if I let people evaluate how I look, I will never ever ever be beautiful so why not turn the tables??
After going through a lot of negativities on how I look, I decided to look at myself at the mirror and take a second look of my insecurities. I realized that everything that they said was true, but there was one thing that they were all wrong about and it was: ”Thinking that my flaws are ugly”
If other people continue to judge and I believe them, I will always be what they think I am. But if I make myself the Ultimate and the Only judge of my own beauty and make them believe that I am beautiful, things will be different.
My whole perspective of my own beauty made an entire paradigm shift. I started to believe that my beauty is beautiful. My height is cute, my skin looks healthy, my square face makes me look like a model, my eyebrows look cool, my teeth is high fashion and nobody got fiercer eyes than I do. I turned everything totally opposite and made other people believe it.
We definitely can’t stop other people pointing out how ugly we are, how ugly our imperfections are and how undesirable we look. But the worst thing that can happen is when you believe it. What makes you beautiful is you, no one would ever think you are beautiful if you yourself don’t even believe you are. Yes most of us don’t fit the standards of beauty but if we make our own standards and make ourselves beautiful in our eyes, people will eventually see the beauty that we see.
