by Gabriel Olatunji

 

When you feel less of yourself because of a defect on your body you are definitely not beautiful yet.

If the reason why you take a hundred selfies in a day is to validate your own beauty, I am sorry to say that you lost it and you have not found it yet. You have not found the true meaning of the word ‘Beautiful’. We have lost the meaning of beauty because the society made us believe that the woman with straight legs, a flawless face, pointed nose, dimples, curvy hips, or not on the big side is beautiful.

It has become an industry. They organize beauty pageants and select one as the most beautiful girl while you agree, or disagree with their choice if you feel some other girl in the competition should have won. But you are also suffering from the same dose of ignorance because being beautiful has nothing to do with how or what you look like. It has nothing to do with the flawless face or the well curved behind – it has to do with you.

The beauty competitions subtly tell you that you are not beautiful and consequently not good enough. Musicians sing about having ‘figure 8’ and because you don’t have it you do not count yourself as beautiful. A guy says you are fat and you spend months checking yourself up using every available mirror you can find and disturbing everyone that comes across your way asking, am I still fat?

If I ask you to choose the most beautiful out of five women you most likely will rush towards the one that is the most visually appealing. After childbirth you resign to fate and say to yourself ‘I used to be beautiful but for pregnancy and childbirth. You are not beautiful in anyway but that’s not because you are fat, you’ve had children, you have a scar or any other bodily defect you may have; you are not beautiful because you don’t believe you are.

When you feel less of yourself because of a defect on your body you are definitely not beautiful yet. No matter how beautiful your body is today it will lose shape someday. Your breasts will sag whether you like it or not, your will get wrinkles on your face and hands, and you will lose the touch of finesse your body used to command. But that should not worry you because your body is not what makes you beautiful but how you feel and believe about yourself.

Your childbirth or so called defect is not a curse but a blessing. The way you look is important but how you feel about yourself is much more important. By all means take care of your body, take a selfie, flaunt your great legs if you’ve got it! Show off if you like but DO NOT let that define you because that is not true beauty. True beauty is from within you. It is the way you feel about your life as a whole. The way you carry yourself. The way you talk. The values you exude. The smile on your face. The positive knowledge you have acquired and ultimately the greatness of your purpose in life. These qualities will make you smile instead of moody. They will make you friendly instead of hostile, approachable instead of distant. They will make men rush to converse with you instead of wanting to get in your pants.

That curvy, sexy and killer shape you call beautiful is mostly good for sex and since you are not a sex hawker, redefine your beauty because the world is yours to conquer.

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– Gabriel Olatunji tweets from @OlatunjiLEGEND

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.