If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies how different our ideals of beauty would be. Beauty is something that cannot me measured and there is no ideal of beauty. We are billions of people and every single one of us has a whole unique world in our mind. We all have our own perception of beautiful and ugly and many more opinions regarding almost everything we see and experience every single second of our lives. Judgement is an inner ghost that constantly asks for our opinion. Very few people when I think about it, can still control or master their own mind. It sounds strange but is still the truth. Fear, anxiety and stress are all the result of a mind that is not in control. Sometimes it is better to listen to a friend without judging them because it creates a feeling of security and trust: “no matter what happens or what I say my friend will not judge me as weird.” A lot of the time our inner judge takes away our ability to simply enjoy the moment. Rather than doing so we are busy forming an opinion all the time to analyse someone rather than appreciating their existence. Many factors have led to this behaviour.

The constant formation of trends that are brought about by the media and famous clothing brands but also celebrities are putting immense pressure on us humans and in my opinion, especially on women to keep up with the trends. Striving for perfection is the new way of achieving beauty. Women want perfect skin, body shape, yes there is even a “perfect” type of personality that can be adopted (with lots of effort).

 We are teaching our children that when they are born, they have to be yet perfected. Sources that picture the ideals do not have to be searched for, in fact they are advertised everywhere. Snapchat and Instagram constantly teach young girls what they should look like or even could look like by introducing filters. When I went to print pictures of myself and my sister for my relatives last week my sister couldn’t find a single natural picture of herself. They all had filters which made her skin look extra smooth and soft and her eyes looked a lot bigger. I was worried when I was thinking about how much damage this must cause. When you see a beautified version of yourself all the time how must one feel when looking in the mirror without filters? Very ugly I presume. I believe that this is definitely an ugly side of beauty. If smart was the new beautiful, I’m sure that fourteen - year olds would not have to go on “save our planet” protests because our consume would be a lot lower. The cosmetics market is growing bigger and bigger and perhaps this is the goal of the “perfection industry.” I think money is most likely the driving force behind it.

Women are often abused for their beauty more than we dare imagine. The porn industry uses women’s beauty to satisfy the sexual needs of a lonely population that finds it ever more difficult to let people get emotionally close. More than half of the world’s population lives alone! Women have very little rights or protection in the porn industry. A lot of the time women do not choose to enter this business at all, but they are forced to because of poverty, drug abuse or violent forces in relation to family and friends. Because of their beauty women often experience uncomfortable situations in their daily lives such as flirty attempts by men or even small comments. Women’s beauty is often more valued than their personality. On top of this porn gives men a completely wrong image of women’s sexual desires and needs and how things in bed should be resulting I unhappy marriages and increasing sexual abuse.

Religions such as Islam have, believe it or not found solutions to some of such issues. Many people living in Europe do not understand why Islamic women cover their heads or faces and see it as an anti – feminist thing to do. However, when you look into the history of the hijab (head scarf) it is made clear that it acts as a way of protection and preservation for women. The hijab and modest way of dressing is meant to protect a woman from attracting attention and experiencing sexual abuse. Women in Islam only show their beauty to their husbands and family at home. This to me, takes pressure off women to be perfect and look good all the time. It also makes women feel less like objects or even prey for men and more like humans. I don’t think that it is too much to say that it is in our blood to be attracted to the opposite gender and some men don’t learn the boundaries that are adequate for a functioning non sexual abuse society.

I find Sylvia Plath’s perspective on beauty regarding the super model industry very interesting. In her poem “The Munich Mannequins” she boldly states that “Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.” She is addressing the pressure on top models and the demand of the industry for top models to remain childless because becoming pregnant could put their perfection or beauty at risk. Heidi Klum’s show in the German television, which is very popular shows how much, top models have to sacrifice in order to remain successful. Women often go through inhumane circumstances such as wearing shoes that are way too small or horrible diets. Once again this makes them seem like performing working machines that are put on show more than anything else.

Surely our physical features may show a fraction of what type of person we are, for example if we take importance in cleanliness, perfection, if we are very vain. However, it is important to remember that none of us get to choose how we look when we are born. Therefore, even the most unfortunate person in relation to physical features deserves a chance to shine because really, we are all just human beings, we all have emotions, we all strive for the same things. To be accepted for who we really are and to be loved is our ultimate mission in life.

It goes without saying that we all love things that are beautiful in our eyes. Studies show that even babies that can only, yet crawl will crawl towards a poster of a woman’s face which is in proportion and looks softer rather than the opposite. So, is this feeling for beauty already built into us?

Relationships may also suffer from beauty. Love at first sight? It probably leads to misfortune more often than it does to happiness. Of course, attraction is an essential factor for a successful relationship. But being honest especially at the beginning phase of a relationship or even at a first date, what will we pay more attention to? Beauty or personality? If we don’t like the physical appearance of a person will we even give them a chance to show us their personality? In my opinion many people don’t even let this happen. Much more people would find “the one” if they gave more people a chance or cared less about beauty.

One thing I know for definite. Our ideals of perfection and beauty have taken over hand with people being obsessed with looking like their idols. Plastic surgery has made so much possible. We can now make ourselves look completely different or the same as someone else. But if you think about it we are all born the way we are for a reason and perhaps one of the biggest struggle in our modern society is to overcome the ugly sides of beauty and simply accept who we are, what we look like and remember to admire someone else’s beauty without questioning our own.