Here’s Why Physical Attractiveness Is the Least Impressive Thing You Could Ever Achieve
You are here for far more valuable things
You are not here to be physically attractive
Think about the three people you are fond of the most in this world.
Now, think about all the reasons you love them.
It’s not because their nails are always done a perfect shade of red, isn’t it? Nor is it because they don’t jump to put their jeans on, or because they have a jawline so sharp, it rivals Timothée Chalamet’s?
You aren’t fond of the people you love most in the world because they’ve never had a bad haircut, or because of the height difference (albeit cute) you both have in photos, or because everyone turns to stare at them in public.
The point is, you don’t love your favourite people because of their physical attractiveness, and so the question is, why should physical attractiveness be the metric you use to measure your self-worth?
“The value that’s put on appearance is completely ridiculous.” — Emma Chamberlain, ep: “body image & self-acceptance” in Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain
Least urgent items
By all means, invest in yourself — exercise, eat well, do your hair, do your make-up, dress well, smell good, and be neat.
There’s nothing wrong with these actions in and of themselves.
If anything, these actions signal not only good manners, but also to an extent, a person who loves and respects themselves.
However, if you find yourself desperately trying to fit into society’s beauty standards — whether it’s starving yourself to rock low-rise jeans or running your wallet empty to keep up with maintenance week — all in the name of trying to fit into whatever body type or bodily aesthetic is trending at the moment, please remember but one thing:
You are here on Earth for a list of innumerable reasons, and being physically attractive is the least urgent item on that list.
“I want to apologise to all the women I have called pretty before I’ve called them intelligent or brave.
I am sorry I made it sound as though something as simple as what you’re born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed mountains.
From now on I will say things like you are resilient or you are extraordinary. Not because I don’t think you’re pretty, but because you are so much more than that.”
— Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey
Most urgent items
The truth is, how attractive you look is the least impressive thing you could ever achieve.
And that’s because your physical attractiveness doesn’t reveal how brilliant you are, how kind you are, or how loyal you are.
Your physical attractiveness doesn’t reveal how you woke up today and decided to show up for yourself even though every fiber of your being protested you didn’t.
Your physical attractiveness doesn’t reveal how you’ve been chasing your dreams and the life you want despite every obstacle that threatens to dismantle the vision you’ve set out for yourself.
Your physical attractiveness doesn’t reveal how you’d fight for the ones you love until your dying breath or how you’d break someone’s nail for even so much as bumping into them (I’m joking, read: not).
Your physical attractiveness doesn’t say much about you.
It genuinely doesn’t — and it shouldn’t.
And that’s because you are not here to be physically attractive, anyways — you are not here to impress us, earthlings, with your looks.
You are here to live.
You are here to figure out how best you’d like to spend your limited time here.
You are here to figure out whether you’re a tea or a coffee person, a Marvel or a DC fan, an introvert or an extrovert, a cat or a dog person, an Arts or a Science student, a Gryffindor or a Slytherin, and whether to be all of these or neither.
You are here to light up the world with nothing but your smile and mere existence. You are here to refreshen the world with your quirks and utter uniqueness. You are here to reduce the aggregate sum of pain and suffering in the world with your acts of kindness.
Most of all, you are here to love and be loved.
And so next time you find yourself placing your worth on something as feeble and as fleeting as physical attractiveness, remind yourself, that even if you were named the most physically attractive person in the world, it’d still be your least impressive accolade.
Remind yourself physical attractiveness doesn’t, even in the slightest, capture your whole essence.
And most importantly, remind yourself, you are here for far far more important things.
𝕌𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕝 𝕟𝕖𝕩𝕥 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖, ℕ𝕠𝕝𝕨𝕒𝕫𝕚 (:
