OP-ED: Embrace Yourself

By Amber Gaskins

What is typical beauty? What is traditional beauty? Why are certain body types romanticized and others criticized? Why is aging frowned upon?

Typical beauty is the ideas that are influenced among different cultures for people to be respected around their communities. It is when some individuals are deemed beautiful, handsome, or ugly.

It is a relatively cruel system, and the results of these standards lead to discrimination and people feeling insecure, chasing a dream that prevents us from living in individuality.

Everybody wants to look like somebody else; we constantly go to the gym to get our

dream bodies and etcetera. We overspend on new clothes and skincare products everyday. We watch “how to glow up” videos on TikTok and YouTube. We watch these videos of others while rotting in bed and not getting up and going outside to live our own lives. The contradiction is within itself. Even with all these strategies, do you ever find yourself satisfied? Or do you go on to chase a new trend or goal? Even with these accomplishments, we need to realize none of this will matter when we exit from this life. None of those followers, designer bags, or skincare products will follow you to your journey of afterlife. People need to begin living for themselves and do what makes them happy and not others.

I also do not understand why people get older and perceive that as terrifying. It's the same with wrinkles or droopy skin, literally anything that society has deemed unattractive. It is not fair to elderly people to not feel as beautiful as they may have felt when they were twenty.

Aging is a blessing. Living a long life is a blessing when it is full of happiness and fulfillment. Yet, no one can truly live happily when chasing something that is not realistic; which is the desire to be like someone else. To not get those wrinkles. To not have sagging skin.

It is time to not live to impress ourselves and not others and stop crying over things we

can not change. Time to eliminate unethical and unrealistic beauty standards in total. Embrace what was given to us and our natural beauty/element. Then the journeys of our lives will be more fulfilling.