Happiness...

Happiness! Happiness is what every being on this planet craves deeply for. Everything that we do at its purest level is for happiness. Maybe for others, maybe for ourselves, but nevertheless, for happiness. The reason why this is such an important thing to understand is because it explains why every human has ever done anything to begin with. To be happy is the ultimate desire of mankind.

So, when you look in the mirror do you like what you see? Or do you automatically think in 10 different things you could change? Why is our beauty so relevant when it comes to our self-esteem? When we were young, we didn’t care about beauty, fashion, make up or how skinny we were. But, over the years, that has changed. Now we are more focused in physical appearance. We often compare ourselves to friends, models and celebrities maybe not even aware that by doing so we are affecting our self-esteem.

With the rise of social media in the past decade, many young children have discovered the world of beauty, fashion and make up. And with time it began to take control of their lives. Once you start to become aware of your physical appearance and see older siblings, friends and people on the Internet wearing makeup, doing cute hairstyles, wearing fashionable clothing you start to feel insecure. You may think you aren’t pretty enough or you aren’t skinny enough. So, you go to beauty gurus to learn how to be prettier, how to be skinnier, how to look better, and have nicer clothing. You began to get consumed in this world of buying tons of products, and spending hours and hours focusing on your appearance. You regularly view these girls, who you think that are so pretty and seem so happy, and you start to believe that the reason they seem happy, is because of the way they look. You begin to fall into the illusion that the problem is the way you look like, and the solution is to change that.

Clothes, makeup, the latest technology, perfume, hair style, hair products, jewellery, shoes, they are never enough, right? Well, wrong. We live in a world where materialism runs rampant through the streets, catching the eyes of all those who are searching for happiness, and don’t know where to find it. You may watch clothing hauls videos, where girls spend so much money on clothes, they don’t even need, which then makes you feel like you’re lacking something. So, you go out and buy a bunch of clothes to add to your already jam-packed closet. Does that make you happy? Fast-forward, a month later, when you´ve already worn the clothes a few times and they just don’t satisfy you the same way they did before. To combat that empty feeling, you buy more because you thought the problem was that you didn’t have enough but that actually made the problem worse. No amount of clothing, shoes, makeup, or any material object is going to fill the emptiness that you feel inside of yourself.

So, if you believe that changing your external appearance will heal your internal conflict you are completely wrong because that only hides your problems it doesn’t fix them. Does makeup, beauty, and fashion a way of expressing yourself or are they just things you use to hide yourself?

Written by Núria Monteiro.