Eye of the Beholder

This small piece of art comes with a small story. As someone who wasn’t quite comfortable with the way she looked for a long time, I’ve always been fairly conscious about how I appear to other people and the judgements they might make because of that. I wanted to present a certain image to people, and so I was careful to dress in the way that I thought would convey that image. However, recently this all came to a head. For several months, I had been debating with myself about cutting my hair very short, pixie cut short. While I wanted to, I was afraid that people would get the wrong ideas about who I was if I did. It took a while and quite a bit of thinking, but I eventually decided that how I felt and what I thought was more important that what other people might think. So I got my hair cut, going from hair that fell to my upper back to nothing much longer than a couple inches and I personally love it. While I haven’t yet noticed any significant difference in the way people treat me, it has been the cause of some serious reflection about dress and perception and allowed me to come to the following conclusion.

People are always going to make snap judgements about us based on the way we dress. That is natural and human and there’s really not a way to stop it. Sometimes it’s helpful to fit into a certain set of standards to present a certain image. But in the end, if people assume to know everything about you or treat you in a way you’re not comfortable because of the way you dress, the fault is with them and not you. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but the only beholder that ultimately matters is you.