How Important is Beauty in Our Society? Young Women Working Dead-End Jobs

I have occasionally bumped into young adults, men or women, who are working what some would label as dead-end jobs. These are young individuals in their middle to late 20’s judging from what I can see (I could be wrong- maybe even early 20’s). Oftentimes, it is in some entertainment, retail, or food service industry. It is often very saddening for me. I have a lot of passion and goals that I want to achieve in life so it is very hard to wrap my head around it, especially when they seem like they are content with living the rest of their lives like that. Obviously, you cannot judge a book by its cover and I cannot assume that these individuals do not have big dreams and are pursuing these things on the side while working a job. In fact, that may be the case. Sometimes I do not get the chance to talk to them and prod a little further. However, from the times I do, I feel like many people are just very content with mediocrity and have almost limited themselves by believing that they are ordinary or average. For me, it is not mediocre if you are passionate and in love with a topic and  you strive to be the best that ever was in that topic or at least enjoy it with an undying passion, even if that topic is boring to others like knitting or collecting socks or DJing. It is usually the ones who are just barely satisfied that get me or are not really interested in their occupation or have really in effect given up (one thing I will never do).

In the future, if I ever run into one of these people, I will try my best to engage in conversation and prod a little deeper out of curiosity. Some are fairly young and quite beautiful. Yet they are working a service job that is easily replaceable and not truly geared to adding experience, knowledge, or capabilities to a resume for a future job. I do think that a lack of knowledge and vision is an obstacle for these people in certain ways, which have given them the mindset and behavior of  hopping from one service job to another. Perhaps they believe this is the only thing they can do.

You must read what I say with a grain of salt because some of them love what they do or view employment as a means to money, and therefore, some of them are fairly content with their lives.

However, for me, it is very hard to accept such a life. It is hard to explain simply why I am the way I am because it is complicated. One of the big influences for my passion and drive are books and the people behind these books. They have influenced me tremendously. (I have a 1000 book reading list, which I plan to release publicly slowly over time) In addition to that, I think throughout my childhood, difference events have really reinforced in me certain affirmations such as “I am going to be someone one day” and “You are better than that. Do not stoop to their level.” and “Cheer up. You were destined for great things.” In addition, certain tasks and accomplishments in classes and things I do that go above the extra mile that I do in class, at work, or in real life that 99% of people do not do really just make me perk up and realize that “hey, I think I have some potential here. I really do hustle hard sometimes.” As a disclaimer though,  I am sure there are thousands of people that hustle harder and for me, I only hustle hard for the things I really want to. And just because one has potential does not mean the universe owes it to you to reach it or even come close. I am sure there are thousands of people who have died with tremendous talent in art or video games or film who never received acclaim while they were alive or were never even introduced to their talent (whether it was chess, stock investing, or computer programming). So I do think that a lot of luck is involved just to be born at the right time and place. Still, luck is only part of the formula to get to the end goal. Tons of hard work is required.

In my experience, interviewing others about their passions, interests, and goals, I have found some recurrent themes after dozens if not hundreds of encounters. Anyone under the age of 20 or in their early 20’s often (and of course there are those fabulous exceptions) but not always seem to have these 2 things: 1. They are not really that passionate or enthusiastic about their study of interest or hobby. They have sometimes been influenced by how much money the occupation makes, parental pressures, and other factors. Sometimes, they are just going about life and not really sure what they are doing. Who said this was a bad thing? It is a practical thing though. Although I tend to frown a bit on it, it is somewhat practical. For me to admit this, especially in person, is a rarity because most of them have a lot of trouble even bringing it up. 2. When I try to converse about their topic, I find out that I am actually more interested in the topic than I thought and often times know more about the topic than them, which ends up really making me frown a bit about the whole thing. Are they at fault? Despite my first natural reaction, I do think that it is not always. Again, some people are just going through life, trying to figure it out. Often, with little direction or prodding from their parents. Sometimes, they just do not enjoy what their parents have encouraged with massive prodding.

Additionally, many are often unwilling to disclose how they truly feel. You can see it in their body language. One can never be truly aware of the full story just because you are talking to someone. I am a good example. I often do not bring up my passions, long-term goals, my work ethic, and everything else because I do not like to brag and it can come off crass. I will often just bring up the bare essentials of what I am doing now and bring the conversation back to them. Because I am more interested in them (and a quick conversational tip. Talking about them is often more conducive to conversation. Most people’s favorite subject is themselves, not you). They often will take it at face value and categorize me as a pretty average guy and go from there. (By the way, there are other ways to be not average and interesting rather than just talking about your achievements, passions, interests, and goals in life – which I tend to avoid because it can border on the lines of bragging about your wealth – for instance, humor and a good, interesting personality – which can be tough to cultivate but do-able)

Anyhow, back on track. Some of these women (and men) I have seen, from afar, look like they have finished school for sure but are still quite young.  Some are quite handsome, good looking individuals. Perhaps not enough to be a model but enough so that I see them as beautiful, young individuals with their whole lives ahead of them. I may just be reflecting my own distaste and sadness when I see them because I myself would never be content just surrendering myself to anything dead-end. Many of them do look fairly satisfied with what they are doing. Some of them even look pretty happy working with each other and performing their work. I do wish them the best of luck in all their endeavors.

To the men, I am more indifferent towards because they are men capable of figuring things out for themselves. Having just wrote that, I realized that women should be equally held responsible especially with the advent of feminism and equality. Perhaps my predisposition to empathize more with the women has to do with the fact that I am a heterosexual male and it is somewhat of a shame that such beauty ends up in these situations. This is obviously something I have to be a little bit more aware of so that it does not put an unneeded bias in my decisions. So, in terms of business and the professional sense, I will keep a blind eye to physical attractiveness, ethnicity or anything else in biasing decisions and making things less efficient. I think I have done a decent job of that throughout my life already, but there is definite room for improvement.

It is interesting to note, however, that physical attractiveness is a multi-dimensional factor for success in society (if we equate success in this instance to monetary gain or prestige rather than other definitions of success like happinesss). One can argue that there are much more important and useful factors right now such as intelligence, the efficiency of your work ethic, time management, what you choose to do with your effort, and how much work you are willing to put in (work ethic). Obviously, there are scenarios where a person of decent physical attractiveness can now fall into an unsuccessful position in life. But, on the flip side, it cannot be denied that beauty is a positive factor that is rather to be had than avoided. If you compare two people who are the same in every way, it would probably be more advantageous for one to be more physically attractive. Having said that, beauty in itself does not guarantee anything and it is one factor in a very large formula of factors in our world. Also, from my experience, the wide degree of physical attractiveness plays another huge factor. Something so different that it cannot be rated on a 1 to 10 scale or something so objective. With the disclaimer that it is somewhat of a subjective thing and has a large variety of differences in taste, it would be better to ascribe it to a 1 to 100 scale. The reason being that beauty can be accentuated, emphasized, altered, and boosted based on what you wear, how you wear it, how much the clothing cost, make-up, other accessories, fitness, health, diet, social proof, who you walk into the room with, life achievements that bleed over, and the list goes on and on. Everything sort of melts together.

Slightly above average natural beauty can be quite a lot different from top-of-the-line natural beauty and can play a huge difference on the advantages in life they have. However, what you, the readers, are now picturing in your minds as top-of-the-line beauty is probably not actually top-of-the-line natural beauty. Remove the photoshop, lighting, make-up, etc. The list goes on and on. And even then, there is a decent amount of subjectivity. Miranda Kerr, Angelina Jolie, Kate Upton, and Scarlett Johansson are currently four of the most celebrated, sexualized sex idols in current pop culture. Yet, in my opinion, when you see them without any make-up, or any of that, they are varying levels of above average (some quite more than others). But I am sure there are people I have seen in person or somewhere on the internet in their natural forms, who are of comparable if not better levels of attractiveness, but they are not famous or known at all. They may just be ordinary people with no or little following.  So, again, there is a level of subjectivity to it: Beauty is in  the eye of the beholder, to a certain extent (One cannot deny there are general trends for a large population as a whole). Miranda Kerr is one of the most famous Victoria’s Secret fashion models yet I think she is somewhat above average if you have ever seen her with zero make-up and ordinary clothes. Clothing, photoshop, and powder can do quite a lot. Margot Robbie looked almost like a goddess in Wolf of Wall Street, but afterwards, when you see her in her natural form – she’s still quite beautiful – but something much more realistic, and down to earth.

I will make two videos in the future on my Youtube (youtube.com/willyoulaugh) on how a girl can accentuate and increase her beauty with the things mentioned and the amazingness of the subjectivity of beauty if I get enough demand. They are quite interesting topics and I have been thinking about making videos on them.

Finally, I would like to note that I do think the people who use their physical attractiveness the best are those who leverage it with business, social connections, social media platforms, and other things to build a brand, franchise, following, or build credibility/experience/recognition to slowly but surely grow a personality people want to hire. Think Tyra Banks. The most successful people or celebrities are not always the most beautiful. I do think a lot of the prettiest people in the world are somewhere in the middle to bottom of the ladder because they felt no need to hustle as much, learn as much, work as hard, make social connections, and so forth.

But again, these are just my personal opinions on the matter, so take it all with a grain of salt. It may not be fact. In fact, I am always open to learn and take on new information. I do think, though, that generally beauty is somewhat of a lottery effect, that if you are really lucky, it can help you quite a lot. I am sure there are plenty of people who have landed jobs, gotten parts, met people, or achieved things in part or wholly due to their physical attractiveness. On the flip side, having such advantages that you are born with, much like being born with a lot of inheritance money, can set you back by making you lazy, spoiled, overweight, and a bad person. Why? Because you use it as a crutch and an excuse not to work as hard. A tortoise and the hare effect where the advantage because a crutch you lean on. Such is the horror and complexity of life. Many of us born into upper middle class wealth with cell phones and internet, one could argue, may suffer similar effects if you are not self-aware, self-motivated, or careful. The message is not to dwell or be envious about other people’s advantages given to them by the “ovarian lottery”. Because that leads nowhere but to a waste of your preciously limited time on this Earth. It is a very interesting topic to talk about though!