Why do we crave beauty? Why do we praise talent? Why is it that our world looks so highly upon things that people are born with? Our society has shifted over the last few centuries to appreciate hard work, intention, and motive in almost every aspect of life. Or so you’d think. This should be applicable for school work, sports, and hobbies, but someone who is born having the ability to do all these things without effort gets the spotlight.
It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that life isn’t an unbiased controlled experiment where we all begin at the same starting line. The truth of the matter is that we all have our weaknesses and strengths, some things that get us ahead and others that keep us behind. But that race is often controlled by the mindset we have towards natural talent or anything that we are born with for that matter.
A person who is born beautiful did nothing to earn that beauty. That is not to say that they don’t deserve it, but it doesn’t change the fact that they did not have to work or put any bit of effort into the placement of their features, or the shape of their nose or the colour of their eyes. Whereas, someone who would have obtained cosmetic surgery, could have put blood, sweat, and tears to earn the money to get the procedure, and yet they’re looked down upon because their beauty is not natural. Technically, the person who got that cosmetic surgery worked harder and earned their appearance more than someone who was born with it. Yet, that natural beauty is always praised. So why do we crave it? What difference does it make if you were born with that beauty or worked to have it later on in your life?
This wouldn’t be a problem if appearance didn’t matter but unfortunately, that is not the case. As much as we hate to admit it, appearance does matter. People compare each other and will treat some individuals differently than others purely because of how they look. The problem is, however, that it’s not just appearance.
Although it is debatable how much you can change your intelligence, everyone is born with an IQ. The school system does have its benefits, but it does not change the fact that some people are smarter than others, and therefore have to do less work, but will still succeed. That is not the problem. The issue is with that one student who studies the material for hours and tries their very best to succeed and still doesn’t get the mark. What are they supposed to do? They are doing everything they possibly can and are not rewarded for it, and that has to hurt. When you want something so bad and do everything in your power to get it, and someone who didn’t need to work hard for it is placed on a pedestal, how can that be fair? How do we allow it? How to stop it, is the better question.
Unfortunately, this praise for the talent we are born with doesn’t stop there. In almost every aspect of life, someone who is born with a talent that you may have worked hard to achieve is given opportunities and endorsements that you deserve just as much.
Throughout high school, I realized that only with a very few things can you say that you’ve worked hard and be praised for it. Although it’s toxic to the highest degree, I’ve seen students who lie about how much they’ve studied to appear smarter, exaggerate how little effort they put into their appearance to seem beautiful, and under-exaggerate the number of hours they placed into a passion to seem naturally talented.
This is the point that we are at because of the mindset we have towards the natural. It’s not fair in the slightest, but it seems almost impossible to fix. How can you change subconscious thinking? But how is it fair that so many suffer because of it? So why do we crave the natural? Probably some primitive programming- the answer would entail the ins and outs of psychology because the mindset is normally subconscious. But now you know- or are at least aware and I think that is a good start to coming up with a solution.