I was having my hair cut in a hair salon the other day, and noticed that besides me was a girl who was barely 16. She was accompanied by two women, one probably an aunt , the other probably her mother. It looked like she had her face all made up, her hair in a kind of braid that looked like it took the last of 2 hours, and her nails, and toenails were all nicely painted. I took a look at her intently, but all she seemed to care about was how ( as did her mom probably) the hair stylist was doing her hair.

She looked good, except that she did not smile, and probably her disposition was not somebody sunny that you want to stay in a room with for more than a few minutes, nor did it looked like she could strike an intelligent conversation, except on how she looked. I pity the girl, and what she had been misled to believe about succeeding in life.

Looking at her, I suddenly remembered a beauty candidate when I was invited to be a judge two years ago. At that time, there was one candidate who seemed to have entered her 10th beauty contest, and it was all enumerated. I understand people who want to succeed, and i know people who have attended over a dozen chess , debate, singing or speech contests. But beauty contests?

I don’t have a problem of people making it by working hard and trying their best to perfect their craft, but in some way, I probably am biased in that I hardly count at how we look as a talent. Sure, it probably is a big factor in how people perceive us, but I still would not think of beauty in itself as a ticket to success, or happiness.

If you have the talents, or the skill, beauty would help, but it can hardly make you successful in itself. I can think of many good looking guys and gals, and with talent, and yes it helped. However, I can think of also of people who were stunningly beautiful and nothing much else, and their beauty did allowed them to have their 2 minutes of fame, and afterwards, without much anything else to back it up, burn out gracefully and disappear. IN fact, I know many who were beautiful and whose beauty led them to miserable lives.

Cultivate your inner and outer beauty. Look good. But don’t try to focus on it too much that you cultivate nothing else! IF you have the looks, great! that is a great opportunity. Spend your time on something else then! Work on your personality. Work on your talents. Develop your writing and communications skills. Instead of intently thinking on how you look!!!

We all want to impress, we want to look cool. But we want to impress people who matter, and believe me, for these people who have been there, nothing is more boorish than a good looking person who really believes he/she looks great, but have nothing else between their ears or elsewhere to show.