The advertising media has one goal — to create a message that speaks directly to our need to look good, to our need to be like the models who have an army of professionals to style them, light them, and Photoshop them until they are tally fictional characters — and we buy right into their messages to us. We succumb to the very calculated influence of advertising and do exactly what they want us to do.
We do whatever it takes to emulate ‘the beautiful people’ in every way possible to look as good as they do. We believe that once we have those fashionable jeans, are wearing a very sensual perfume and our chic underwear, while driving the perfect car, and showing up at all of the right places, we will definitely look good. Of course, once we do all this, it should certainly make us feel good, right? Wrong. Why not?
Even with all of “the right things” advertised to make us look good, feeling good about ourselves just doesn’t last when the feeling is based on temporary external fixes. They are just a Band-Aid.
They don’t change the root cause of our need to feel better, so feeling good about ourselves doesn’t last.
Then what? Does that mean we have to buy the latest style, sexiest fragrance, or newer model, to continue looking good to others? You know the answer to that as well as I do. Of course it does. That’s what you think you have to do to look good. Your friends and neighbors expect it of you. On the other hand, consider the idea that there is not a pair of jeans, a bottle of perfume, or a new car anywhere in the world that can truly make anyone feel good for very long.
The temporary guidelines determined by society (remember, the guidelines are always changing) create a temporary sense of looking good which makes us feel better temporarily. And, even if the guidelines stayed the same forever, the sense of feeling better would still be temporary because our sense of feeling better is dependent upon something outside of ourselves.
Do you compare yourself to the “beautiful people” or the “important people” who appear on the covers of magazines? Make a list for yourself.
