Daily Beauty, Day #24: Validation

I think there is a growing need in our culture to display what we are doing.

It is as if our actions and our words do not matter unless they have been properly documented and shown to the world. As if we are who we are because we appear that way. And as if without these proofs of our identity, we would be nothing.

I don’t agree with this philosophy. And although we all feel this pressure, I don’t think it is necessary to adhere to it. We may long for praise and affirmation, but we misguidedly attribute the root of this longing to worldly sources. At our very core, we are not longing for temporary words of admiration. This longing is for something entirely different. It is for what transcends earthly bounds, and yet we try fruitlessly to fill it by looking to earthly places.

We do not need other people to validate our actions. In fact, when we lay ourselves out so bare, desperate for approval, we give away what is uniquely ours. We give power to the people around us and lose something in the process. We lose, in some small part, the dignity inherent in our being. We lose touch with the truth that tells us we are who we are independent of what happens or who appreciates us.

Our beauty is not tied to who sees it. When our own light shines, some will be blessed enough to behold its beauty. But others will stand in the light when it benefits them, and leave it later on, without recognition of the warmth or glow it provided. Some may fail to see the light, even though it illuminates their surroundings. This takes away nothing from the light itself. The light may be spread and it may be shared; however, the light is always light regardless of who or how many bask in its beauty.

I think that life would be much more beautiful if we did not worry about presenting our selves to the world in a certain light. Instead of trying to show who we are in order to feel we belong or have beauty, we could simply be who we are and not concern ourselves with who knows or understands it. We cannot control others around us and we cannot control their reactions and attitudes towards beauty.

But one thing that I know is true is this: beauty is beauty. It may feel unnoticed or alone, but it is never forgotten. No matter how it seems, beauty always has a cause and it always leave an imprint: an image of beauty that shapes the world, no more or less beautiful for appearing in ways we may never fully see or understand.