I mean, look around at the number of people having lifts and tucks, enlargements and enhancements.  Permanent makeup, there is a concept for you.  Get tattoos on the sensitive parts of your face, so don't ever have to worry about putting makeup on again.  There are pills and procedures for removing wrinkles, removing fat, enhancing your sexual life, making your lips more pouty, keeping your hair a young color etc. etc. etc.

I partially blame the advertising schemers of our century.  The models and ideals that are represented in almost every advertisement nowadays represent less than 2 percent of the actual living population.  Yet this is what people feel like they MUST look like in order to gain any sort of acceptance in society.  But you can't just blame the advertisers.  We also have to blame the people that buy into this image.  It's a sad fact of American society today that we feel that in order to be the best we can be, we have to look a particular way.  We accept what the advertisers tell us; thus reinforcing this image, in turn telling the advertisers this is what we WANT to see.  This is how we WANT to be judged.

It has come to the point where we don't even realize that these images, these advertisements, effect the way we perceive ourselves.  It's a sad time when we have diseases such as anorexia and bulimia that take toll on people's health, just so they can try to reach what they see as the "ideal" image of themselves.  These are sicknesses were the ill person doesn't even in realize what they're doing to their bodies. They can't see the damage that they are doing.  They just see someone who isn't thin enough.

This is not a new phenomenon either.  Throughout history there have always been different "ideals" for body types.  At one point in history being large showed how wealthy were.  The more wealth you had, the less you actually had to DO.  The less you had to do, the more you could eat and retain your shapely form.  Nowadays tanning beds provide hours that people don't actually have to lie in the sun, but can still walk away with a nice glowing tan.  In times gone by, the paler you were, the more attractive.  Lighter flesh showed that you were wealthy enough that you did not have to work in the actual sun, instead you can lounge about all day indoors without a care in the world.

Nowadays, wealth is shown by how much time you can spend a gym, tanning salons, and how much you can spend on expensive "touchup" operations and procedures.  It seems that the "ideal" body is always dictated by perceived wealth.

I can't wait for the day when the "ideal" is being able to afford to be yourself.  When we don't feel that we have to stand up to the measures that other people set, and that society seems to hold so dear.  In the days where the natural beauty that each of us possesses is allowed to shine through, perhaps we'll realize how wealthy we all are in our own rights.  Not material wealth, but rather the wealth of knowledge, creativity, and beauty that each of us possesses deep inside.

When the day comes where everyone is comfortable being who they were born to be, without all the operations and procedures, pills and processes, that will be an indication that our world has come to a point were everyone is truly equal.  When material objects no longer matter, and people are based truly by what's inside.  That will be happy day and something we should strive for.

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