As a people, we have an addiction to self image.

We take pictures over and over again because we are displeased with how we look. We spend endless amounts of money on weight loss, makeup, hair products, etc. We do all of this in an effort to look like someone that is not us, to look like something that we do not look like naturally. It is as if we dislike ourselves so much that we do not even want to look like we did once before. We are constantly trying to reinvent ourselves to be better than those around us. My question is...why?

Why should I feel like I need to starve myself to make a boy like me? Why should he feel like he needs to go to the gym and eat protein 7 days out of the week to make women like him? These tactics may show results, but the result that we do not contemplate is how this addiction affects us mentally and spiritually.

It has become apparent that we as a society feel as though we need to make people fall in love with the physical—the temporary. I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but our physical appearances fade with age. We get wrinkles, we gain weight, we get sick, we lose teeth, hair, etc. Nothing on the outside is forever. The human body and the pains that come with it are the most temporary aspects of our existence as human beings.

…..And yet…this is what we choose to invest our souls in. We have chosen to invest our souls and our love, the most eternal aspects of us as human beings, in the most temporary attributes of ourselves and others. We have been raised on fairy tales that describe the most handsome prince and the princess who is the fairest of them all.

There is something that has been lost in translation throughout the years. Those princes and princesses were not the most handsome or the most beautiful in all of the land, but they were to their partner, which is who we identify with as a third party observer reading their partner’s thoughts.

People should see their partner’s in that light not because of their physical attributes, but because their souls shine so brightly through their physical demeanor that there is no way that they can go unnoticed and there is no way that they can go unloved. People should not be described as ugly or beautiful. They should be described as kind, understanding, clever, intelligent, fair, funny—the list goes on and on.

People should view others and the world the same way that Roald Dahl does in his book, The Twits. Dahl states:

"If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

You will always look lovely.

If you are unkind, you will not grow a crooked nose—literally, that is. However, if you are selfish and unkind and aggressive and unforgiving, those traits will emanate from you wherever you go and some people, people like me, will see you as ugly. For you cannot be the fairest of them all if you have the heart of a beast.

Everyone knows that rule, my friend.

So, how do we cure this unforgiving disease of self indulgence and physical obsession?

I have no idea.

BUT I believe that the best way to combat it is this: you should ask yourself one question every morning, do I like me? For when you are old and cannot see or hear and are stuck inside your own head with only your own thoughts to keep you company…you sure as hell better love what is in your mind. That is all you will have left.