In pursuit of beauty

Perhaps it lies in the perception, intuition, and gratitude with which we survey the world around us. Maybe it lies in the joy we experience by genuinely seeing what is right in front of us. Perhaps it is in the awareness of the beauty we all are.

Society wants us to believe that something beautiful must conform to specific standards, guidelines, and ideals.

Perhaps, if we opened our eyes and looked with full awareness, beauty will enrich our lives. But maybe beauty is in your eyes, your smile, the words you use, and the actions you take.

Some people are beautiful, not because of their looks, but because of the purity of their hearts, kindness, and warmth – how they touch our souls.

I believe that genuinely seeing the beauty around us is a gift. A very precious gift. Appreciating the beauty of people and things should not be squandered.

Let’s make a habit of seeing beauty around us, every day. We will begin to understand that there is beauty in even the tiniest little things, and our lives become beautiful too.

I am sometimes asked whether I am not perpetuating a frivolous world, focused on creating the perfect face, the ideal body when I practice cosmetic surgery. A world where the pursuit of beauty is empty and often at a tremendous emotional cost.

I can honestly say that I have been very blessed that in all my years practicing as a plastic surgeon, I have not had a single patient who came to me because they wanted a perfect face or body. None of my patients ever request or strive to be more beautiful. Instead, the request is to restore, to improve – not looks, but a sense of well-being, of doing something for oneself and one’s loved ones.

Maybe this is the reason why this quotation by Gaspare Tagliacozzi resonates with me: “We bring back, refashion, and restore to wholeness the features which nature gave but chance destroyed, not that they may charm the eye but that they may be an advantage to the living soul, not as a mean artifice but as an alleviation of illness, not as becomes charlatans but as becomes good physicians and followers of the great Hippocrates. For although the original beauty of the face is indeed restored, this is only accidental, and the end for which the physician is working is that the features should fulfill their offices according to nature’s decree.”

Many scientific studies have been conducted to study the perception of beauty. Undoubtedly, it is true that, throughout the centuries, more attractive people of all ages and all walks of life are judged more favorably and treated better.

These studies have also proven that many factors play a role in personal attractiveness – how we dress, act, and carry ourselves.

So, what makes one attractive? Evolutionary psychology holds that faces indicate a person’s qualities as a life partner, of health, of genes, and even of character. More symmetrical faces are perceived as more attractive. The “average” face is perceived as more attractive, too – rather than the more distinctive one.

However, our perception of beauty can land us in trouble. “In myth, beautiful women are disruptive of men’s reason, even causing them to go to war. We now know that there’s truth to the idea that men make worse decisions when exposed to female beauty,” writes Eric Wargo in his cover story titled “Beauty is in the Mind of the Beholder,” published by the Association for Psychological Science in the Observer in 2011. He goes on to explain the impact the observation of beauty has on our brains.

It is natural that we would strive to make ourselves more attractive – not necessarily to the opposite sex only, but to society in general. We can be healthy – by eating healthy, observing our weight, by staying fit – a healthy person is more attractive than an unhealthy one. Even a smile, a gesture of kindness, makes us more beautiful. And many of these factors are under our control – the way we dress, the way we cut our hair, and the way we behave.

Eric Wargo concludes: “Be beautiful – or, as beautiful as you can. Smile and sleep and do whatever else you can do to make your face a reward.”

According to a new study attractive people are judged more accurately – at least, closer to a subject’s self-assessments. “People do judge a book by its cover,” the researchers write, “but a beautiful cover prompts a closer reading.”

And so, by performing cosmetic surgery procedures – surgical or non-surgical – and supporting this with professional skincare, I play my role in making a person more attractive – not necessarily beautiful.

And I hope and believe that my touch will not only enrich a face or a body, but also a soul.