While I was looking for expression of appearances, I read two interesting articles. I am pretty sure that you will enjoy, Here they are.
Origin : http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1725040/the_way_you_look_is_more_important.html?cat=9
The Way You Look is More Important Than Who You Are
Image has always been of the utmost importance to my family. I grew up among women who had to have the full scale of make-up upon their faces and every hair in its perfect place before they could emerge into the world. This went for grocery store trips as well, mind you. I rarely saw my mother without makeup on and she often reapplied her bright red lipstick throughout the day. Being without lipstick was a tragedy that had to be avoided at all extreme costs!
But aside from being made up for every hour of the day, weight was also a major player in my family. We were not all graced with the perfect genes that allowed us to eat whatever we wanted in a country of extreme proportions. My mother struggled with her weight for as long as I could remember and her struggle ended with a diagnosis of diabetes. I suppose this should have been a warning siren with the effect of keeping me from indulging in the bakery section of the grocery store, but it wasn't.
I've been overweight for most of my adult life. But when I say overweight, I mean ten to twenty pounds overweight. It was never significant enough to draw attention. That is, it never drew attention to anyone outside my family - or so I thought. Those extra pounds were the measure of my failures and when I lost weight; that was the measure of my success. Our society plays into that shallow perception as well, but when you are surrounded with those sort of ideas all of your life, you don't recognize the problem. It wouldn't be until I turned twenty-five that I would truly understand how much importance those around me would place in the way I looked.
2006 started out as a successful year for me. I had just landed a solid position that paid more than I had ever made in my life. I was miraculously at a healthy weight for reasons that were and still are unknown to me. Regardless, I was feeling optimistic and discussions with a co-worker led me to try and shape other parts of my life - mainly the physical. So I threw myself into a program and managed to take another twenty pounds off of my already reasonably trim frame. I became obsessed with the weight loss as I dropped size after size. Soon I found myself in a size I hadn't been able to fit in since my first year in high school.
But aside from my waist line, things around me began to change. I found strangers were walking up to me and starting up conversations. Men were making comments. People wanted me around. And while this may all seem like a great thing, I find it very repulsive as I think it about it now. The way I looked was more important than who I was. Because I was the same person I had always been. I had just managed to alter the way I looked on the outside.
Ultimately, it didn't last as the rigorous exercise and near-starvation diet was impossible to keep up. The attention faded away as the pounds slipped back on. The cause and effect of that experience was such that it led me to experiment further. And so, I went to the hairstylist and insisted that she cut all of my hair off. I was, after all, always complemented on my striking red hair. And my first boyish haircut actually landed me a great deal of complements; mostly from women.
It took a lot of courage to make a change like that in a world that values image so highly. I caught a lot of negativity from people who had obviously just liked me for my full head of hair. But the years I spent after were amazing and enlightening. I got to know who I was and I realized that it was important to surround myself with people who liked who I was. I've been growing my hair out for eight months now because I've learned what I set out to learn - who you are is more important than how you look.
