What Would My Life Be Like If I Was Ugly?

Forgive the obnoxious title and hear me out. The long and the short of it is that I’m a pretty girl. I know that there are plenty of girls out there who are more beautiful than I am, but I also know that I’m above average in the looks department. Before you write me off as a shallow brat, let me just say that I know looks aren’t the end-all-be-all. I know that girls who only invest in their appearance end up as desperate 40-something cougars with frozen foreheads and lopsided jowls from years of Botox and fillers. I know that kindness, intelligence, and ambition are infinitely more admirable qualities. But I have to admit that as an attractive girl, life has handed me things that I may not have deserved.

Sometimes I ask myself what my life would be like if I wasn’t attractive. Would I have been able to sweet talk my financial counselor into renewing my scholarship after my GPA plummeted freshman year because I partied too hard? Would I have landed all the jobs I’ve had over the past few years, even though I applied with no experience? Would the people I care about—acquaintances, friends, even my fiancée—still be in my life if I looked…well…ugly? 

Okay, so it’s not exactly a shocking revelation that attractive people are unfairly privileged. But I worry about myself, my future children, and all the people I love living in a culture that increasingly values something that has a very fleeting, finite shelf life.

President Obama said that we need to value the winner of the science fair as much as we value a star quarterback. I hate to be cynical, but to me that sounds as likely as Joan Rivers looking like a human being again. Let’s face it: can you really see the class math whiz being as popular as the starting quarterback, or for that matter, the homecoming queen? In China, the brightest students are revered. Here, the brightest students are the punch lines of cult classics like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles.  We idolize celebrities who are young and beautiful, regardless of whether they have anything interesting to say (or an ounce of talent, for that matter). And if you ask a 4^th grader who she wants to be like when she grows up, you’re far more likely to hear Miley Cyrus than Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice.

Why are we this way? Will it ever change? And for that matter, should it even change? Or are our society's materialistic and beauty-obsessed values ultimately harmless?  Whatever the answer is, I hope I have the fortitude of character to wake up in 30 years, see my laugh lines, wrinkles, sun spots, and saggy skin, and love myself exactly as I am.

Catch ya later,

Lil’ Gen XYZ