No Body Modifications?

The first picture is of a very attractive woman; the second . . . not so much. The things we do to ourselves in our desire to be liked / approved of by others – often so blindly as to the actual effects of those things we do in that pursuit . . .

This is a prime example of how self-perception is so subjective – and why it’s important to learn as much as we can about ourselves and be / become at peace with who we are. Sometimes I think we undervalue or forget the importance of the fundamental Mormon concept that, “I am a child of God” and that we are of “infinite worth”. Otoh, sometimes we focus so much on our subjective view of perfection that we end up twisting and distorting the beauty we possess already.

Finally, not to get overly philosophical about it and stray completely from the point of the post (and I think this is an example of when “body modification” is a terrible idea), but I see those two images and can’t help but apply it figuratively to some people I know who let anger and disillusionment turn them from someone who was good and sincere and simply ignorant of some things to a completely different person who is bitter and conniving and “educated” about those things (but, in too many cases, so obsessed with those things that they become ignorant of things they used to understand and remain ignorant of many other things).

If someone has a birth defect or is scarred from an accident, I don’t think it’s out of the question to seek “modification.” The world is too complicated to make a hard and fast rule so black and white as “no body modification,” related to treating our bodies as sacred and a temple for our spirits.

FWIW, I think she was a cute girl before she altered her face. People get oddly obsessed in an unhealthy way about things like that, a certain body part or whatever. It doesn’t seem to end well with the plastic surgery IMO. And to top it off, that type of surgery has a “shelf life” of only a few years usually. Then even that starts to sag and distort. It seems like that ends up looking much worse in the long run.