The entertainment industry is so obsessed with beauty that many young men and women spend their lives trying to cope with both the embarrassment and the burden of such adulation. And beauty takes many different forms, so, for the purposes of this article, the definition will be widened and any much sought-after quality may be included in the ‘beautiful’ category. The list I have written is certainly not exhaustive but there seem to be at least nine strategies people use to cope with the problem, and these will be posted in next nine blog-posts.
Management Strategy #1: tell yourself a lie about your beauty.
An attractive young person will often will try to manage their problem by telling themselves they are not really attractive, even ugly. Hence the attempts to make the lie a reality with antisocial behaviour, dressing badly and self-hatred; or even tempting fate by ignoring the warnings of their friends and family—who often won’t just come straight out and say, ‘You need to face the fact that you are beautiful, which spells danger.’
The problem with lying to yourself is that it leads to deep, deep hurt. For example, an attractive woman (or man in fact) needs to recognise that there are some places where it is very dangerous for them to go for no other reason than the fact that they are very attractive. So—despite what they might think—they need to face the fact that they are the kind of person who turns heads, and to fail to accept this is not humility, it is a type of self-delusion, which will be put them on the road to all kinds of pain. Beauty spells danger: danger for them and those around them.
Honest recognition of this will mean learning to take precautions and cares that other men and women do not have to take: care with the clothes they wear, the places they go on their own and the way they look at others. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ Many have scratched their heads over why this is in there, but one ancient commentator makes the point that you simply cannot pray such a prayer if you yourself are in the habit of leading others into temptation by the way you speak, write, dress and live.
