#Stop the Beauty Madness campaign aims to create a new culture around beauty. A culture that’s based on holistic self-qualities instead of physical appearance or vital statistics. A culture that encourages women to raise their confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth. A culture that wants women to acknowledge that they’re enough, and for me, perfect as who they are.

They have various ads for the campaign, which features women of all ages. They also have a website and Facebook fan page, Twitter and Instagram.

But what, really, is beauty madness? Does the culture of beauty madness exist? What does it mean to be beautiful in the first place?

Let’s get real. Beauty is something that we all aspire for. We all have a yearning towards it. Beauty evokes feelings within us and moves us into action. It’s a self-satisfying experience to say the least. And that makes it very personal. The conflict comes in when we try to represent or embody our idea of beauty to others.

But as humans, we tend to overlook our own version of beauty so that we can belong to a group. We compromise our own beliefs to what the majority dictates so that we can be accepted. And only then, we’ll feel that we’re being recognized.

And there lies the problem.

The two or three similar opinions of others do not need to become your truth. And I am not saying this to promote disunity or rebellious attitude. Cases like, since you and I have different opinions on this, we can never agree, therefore, cannot be in harmony. No, what I’m saying is that, our society lacks respect for singular opinion and understanding of where that opinion is coming from.

And here’s another irony.

We put blame on the media, on the other people that we interact with everyday, their narrow views and their judgmental attitudes. But, when did we ever look within ourselves?

You got to take 100% responsibility of your life. This means, you’re in control of which opinions to believe, which influences you allow to enter your mind and affect your life.

So, if you think and feel that you got to conform to what majority thinks is beautiful, you decided on it. That was your choice. And by choice, it means that you have all the rights in the world not to take it in the first place.

So, let’s take a moment here to think back on the latest issue of the beauty magazine that you’ve seen, or that last ad for an amazing beauty product, or even that gorgeous ensemble of clothes, shoes and bag at the boutique.

The thing is, the owner of those products knows you enough to arrange certain elements that would certainly catch your attention. What you see in the media is the reflection of what you want. Why would they let you see something that you don’t like? That will definitely not pull in any revenues. That’s bad business.

I have nothing against women who wants to be like a supermodel, or who wants to get a nose-job or boob-job. It’s their preference. It can be the thing that makes them feel good about themselves. Or it can be their way of expressing self-love.

It’s all about choices. Choices that hopefully, they made in line with their values and not because other people think it’s cool or because they heard it from someone else.

I recommend moderation. Because whatever’s done in excess never ends up with something good. You want to lose weight? Please be reasonable and do it the right way. You want whiter, smoother skin? Please ask yourself if that would serve you well.

Always, always ask yourself if you’re doing these things for the right reasons.

And the idea that physically attractive people should just be on the cover of magazine and nothing else… Defies all reasons and common sense. Don’t you have any imagination? Those physically attractive people can go after any dreams that they like. They can be anything that they like to be.

Remember, you don’t have power over any other person, unless, UNLESS they let you. The reverse is also true. No one can have power over you without your permission.

So, personally, I don’t think that there’s beauty madness, that one perception of beauty is more acceptable than others, or wanting to be beautiful should be condemned.

Photo Credit: SweetOnVeg via photopin cc

I’m for diversity. The more ideas of beauty we have, the more representations we can make of it, the better. That way, we’ll have more options, more perspectives, more opportunities to learn about ourselves and our values. The more we can build something that’s definitely us. A personality we created out of our own choices. Our very own version of beautiful.

What about you? What’s your take on beauty? This campaign? Do you agree with this post? Let us know in the comments! Thanks for reading!