Can Beauty Make You Happy?
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
Hellen Keller, without the gift of sight, was more than capable of judging what is most beautiful in the world. Virtually all of the great philosophers through the ages held to this idea of beauty. For instance, Plato and Kant, held that you cannot see true beauty with the eyes, but only with mind or soul. You cannot see with your eyes the tremendous beauty in an act of kindness. Your eyes cannot see the beauty of courage, cannot see the beauty of goodness, and cannot possibly see the true beauty of a person. We can see the superficial, surface level beauty of a person, but not the true inner beauty.
In some sense, Helen Keller had an advantage over us all. She was never distracted by how people looked, never fooled, never tempted to think that maybe how they looked on the outside was also what they were like on the inside. It’s as if she could cut through the facade and see their true beauty; she could more immediately and directly see who they really were. The rest of us can, at times, be blinded by our eyes, and all too often led to believe that true beauty is, say, the models we see on the magazine covers in the checkout aisle of the grocery store.
Please don’t be fooled for a minute into thinking that people are happy because they look “beautiful.” Or that you would be happy if you looked like that. Happiness is internal. True happiness comes from relationships with friends and family, kindness, gratitude, laughter, working (if you like your work) and taking satisfaction in doing something well, creatively or productively. Yes, you can see your friends, but you cannot see with the eyes what it is that makes them a good friend, that makes them someone you enjoy spending time with. You cannot see what makes them someone beautiful to you, no matter how they look. The best and most beautiful things in life are invisible, seen only with the mind, heart, soul (or whatever you wish to call it). These are the things that make us happy and make life worth living.
By all means, take pride in how you dress and appear, look appropriate for your work and circumstances. But take care not to stress out about it, and don’t waste your life striving for and obsessing about something which cannot make you happier. Shrug that off - life’s too short to waste it worrying about those things. Please don’t let your eyes blind you to true beauty.
Ultimately, everything we do, we do because we think it will somehow make us happy. And if you think looking a certain way will really make you happy, you’re going to spend much of your life chasing that ideal, trying to force your body to do something it doesn’t want, even sacrificing your health (yes, dieting is unhealthy), because you want to be happy. But the simple truth is that it won’t make you happy. It’s not the kind of thing which can. Spend your life pursuing the real things that can actually make you happy!
At The Kahm Clinic, we utilize state of the art metabolic testing and body composition analysis to support you in living your healthiest life in a body full of energy, strength and the ability to find the happiness and connection in the world around you. We know that each person, and each body, is different and we consider that in our treatment approach. If you, or a loved one, is in need of support for general nutrition, disordered eating (including treatment of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, compulsive exercise and OSFED), athletic performance evaluation or any additional nutrition and health needs, please reach out today.
We now have locations in Burlington, VT; Phoenix, AZ and most recently Newton, MA (seven miles from downtown Boston). Reach out today!