In the End, We Only Judge Ourselves

For weeks during my cold commute in and out of Boston, talk radio heated up with debate about the candidates vying for our open Senate seat. "Blah, blah, blah…" they droned on, "blah, blah, blah." But one evening as I sat at the stop light on 1A in Revere pondering what really happens in the building formerly known as "The Green Spot", I heard a word I don’t normally hear in politics. "Blah, blah, TRIATHLETE." Huh? Did they say Scott Brown is a triathlete? So I turned the radio up, listened a little closer and confirmed via internet the next day what I suspected. Scott Brown is hot.

But before you call me superficial, it is not entirely my fault. I grew up in the same society as you- one that puts heavy emphasis on physicality. And whether we like it or not, we are judged by others in a matter of seconds based only on our appearance - a sad irony considering our entire life can be shaped by the one factor we have absolutely no control over- mom and dad’s genes. In fact, our appearance can affect everything from our love life to our value in the job market. And while it is unfair for something so superficial to carry such importance, it is a sad truth many of us learn at a young age.

I spent chunks of youthful years wasted with worries of being teased about my appearance. Getting ready for high school was like getting ready for battle. I would start with the tightest girdle available, a torture I wouldn’t dream of bestowing upon myself today. I did my hair for what seemed like hours. If it didn’t come out right, I’d rewet it and do it over again until I got the perfect Farrah Fawcett-ish flip. I would dress, redress and dress again worried that every clothing and hair choice would provide more fodder for fools to harass me. But no matter what I did it, it was clear my lot in life was to be a target for teasing. I can still feel the pit in my stomach walking down the long main corridor in high school, hugging the wall as I passed by the cool cliques, praying to be invisible which was preferable to their scrutiny. And while I can laugh now at some of the lame names I was called, I still feel the pain of that young girl who found the most difficult part of school not to be her studies, but being studied and judged by her own classmates.

But who really determines where we fall on the beauty scale- others or ourselves? In hindsight, I believe that in the range from The Elephant Man to Olivia Newton John, I was probably somewhere in the middle, and it wasn’t my appearance at all that made me a target for bullies- it was the fact that they knew their words could hurt me. My weakness was not my early development, but my low self-esteem about it.

At some point in our lives, we have all been subject to the storm of judgements that rain down upon us. The difference is that some use their self-confidence as a raincoat, letting the critiques roll off, while others are like giant sponges, absorbing criticisms and carrying the weight of those hurtful words their whole life.

So who suffers a harsher reality check - the child who discovers that not everyone thinks they are as pretty, handsome, smart or talented as their parents told them they were? Or the child who never received that validation in the first place, to the point where they can’t accept a sincere compliment without thinking of it as a charitable donation? In the end, it is up to us to make the life changing choice to judge ourselves as harshly as we are judged by others, or to foster the self-respect that projects our true beauty to the world.

Which brings me back to Scott Brown, who is still hot. But less because of his physical appearance, and more because he is so obviously confident and comfortable in his own skin, even when he too was being criticized because of his appearance. And while I won’t disclose whether Brown got my vote or not, I will disclose that I have wrung out my sponge, and am investing in a heavy duty raincoat as more showers are expected.