What's more ridiculous? Someone who spends minutes, hours, and days on an online community sharing personal information about their life with people who don't even bother to call them or someone who prefers to keep their personal lives private and share only with those who mutally consent to human interactive relationships?

I believe the later is less ridiculous, but not according to most of you out there, with your daily updated profiles and fabulously recent photos of you and your friends online, it might not be.

In a single day with my newly activated facebook account, I found out several of my girlfriends from HS and College are either newly engaged or recently married. They even put weddings photos up for viewing. I saw them in their beautifully expensive white gowns kissing the man of their dreams. He was no longer a far off thought or a figment of our imagination - he was there - in digital color - for all who accepted "friend requests" to see.

I probably spent a solid hour requesting to be friends with old HS buddies and current acquiantances, and surprisingly realized my closest friend who also has a facebook account, posted a picture of me with her on her profile. I specifically remember the day and my unwillingness to be in the photo - and yet - it was taken anyway. She decided to share the photo with her facebook friends, and to my dismay, found it "ridiculous" that I request the photo to be deleted. In fact, she saw it is as me whining.

Why has the social importance of being connected online far exceeded our friend's feelings and our respect for them? Is it that important to show pictures of our lives that we do not even care who may not consult to share theirs as well?

It continues to bother me and will continue to bother me, but at least now I know, before I hop in a photo, I have to say, "please don't post this on facebook, I don't have an account and woud like to keep it that way. Thanks."

Dove's campaign for real beauty is interesting, encouraging, and the link at the bottom of my blog explains what we all struggle with on a day to day basis - the image of beauty. Who defines beauty? God, perhaps, in your head, in your hearts, and in your knowledge....but....have you ever struggled with what you saw in the mirror? I mean, if I were to face the naked truth about my struggle with looking positively at the mirror, I would have to say I don't like some part of what I see EVERY DAY. Now, your response to that fact may not be intially passionate. You're probably even saying to yourself something like, "welcome to the club." But isn't it sad the norm has become disliking yourself?? and not really seeing ALL OF YOU as beautiful? Seeing my whole self as beautiful. period...I don't think has ever happened. Is my beauty lens really distorted? Weight watching has become a national past time and wanting to fix something I don't like seems to fit in with every group of people I interact with. And the topic of convo you can always chat about with a stranger, strangely enough, is mostly about weight and weather. "I want my butt to be tighter, I wish my calves were stronger, if only my teeth were straighter..." It gets exhausting, disliking oneself so much. And no one's telling me I'm ugly, at least not to my face (haha, funny). All jokes aside, if my boyfriend can tell me that I'm beautiful and mean it, why can't I say that to myself? Is it due to the countless images I see of celebs and models? Truly, I don't think they really effect me. The reason is, their looks are unattainable with the methods that are available to them in comparison to the methods that are available to me. BUT, what if it was attainable? Then would their images and "perfectin" effect me more? And maybe some little part of me does think I can look like a Victoria's Secret model......hmmm...since I know I'll never be able to be rid of my genetically, inherited large C cup (something I sort of like about myself).

My point is, it is a daily choice to define beauty by what YOU want it to be defined by, simply because we do have many sources defining beauty for us. I think the only source that matters is YOU.

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat4.asp?id=6909