February 29, 2012

• Happiness by Post-It Notes

  Recently, These were seen all  around my campus

  (and still can be seen)

  

  I did smile when I saw this. I thought to myself, "aw someone really wants to boost the self esteem of different people, someone really wants to make people smile! It's pink! What nice words!" 

  However, it didn't do much to make me feel any prettier. It made me feel hopeful since there are men and women going around livening up the atmosphere, reminding people that they are beautiful, pretty, etc etc.

  And I realized I was smiling not because I believed the words written on the post its, but rather because of the concept of the post it note. Then, I realized that if I was already pretty low on self esteem and was really, really disappointed in the way I look, this note probably wouldn't do much to me. I remember seeing this back in high school when I had serious issues about the way I looked- some days, I absolutely hated it. And upon seeing these notes stuck all over school grounds, I would start to wonder how meaningful these words were.

  The impersonality of the notes bothered me, and I had constantly wished that those words were said to me by someone close to me. Now, if I think I look like bleh, I think bleh about the situation and go WHATEVS OH HwELLLZ. I think it's because, even though I knew this back when I was little, I've finally accepted and have taken seriously the fact that physical attributes will change and disappear, but your heart is what remains the most controlled. This is something we've accepted as a FACT, but rarely do we actually believe it enough to apply it to ourselves. Say you are in a relationship, the guy finds you super pretty and attractive on the outside, or the girl finds you really handsome. Now say you get in to some accident, or you suddenly get a weird pimple, you go through stress and gain weight, are you still going to be the same to him/her? Are these sticky notes going to help you?

  Perhaps they will. Perhaps they'll remind you that someone will think you are just beautiful (a word that shouldn't be thrown around so much, like the word "love," I am guilty of abusing both -__-). But that doesn't solve the root cause of the self esteem issue, does it? 

   A sticky note saying "you're beautiful" really holds little meaning if the girl or guy is torn already, and the word "beautiful" is so overused by so many people to describe more than one woman, not just their wives/girlfriends/s.o's, but to describe many women they pass and see. 

  I am not attempting to condemn the actions of the people who started the sticky note concepts, nor am I trying to devalue the uplifting feelings they may deliver to readers. What I AM trying to suggest is instead of relying on sticky notes to convey to strangers you think they're beautiful, attempting to lighten up moods and whatnot, or even assuming that since there are sticky notes, then your job is now done, go ahead and tell your girlfriend your wife your best friend your mom dad husband boyfriend brother whatevz what you think of them.

  Impersonal statements and encouragement can only go so far. Statements about the outer appearance can only go half as far as the aforementioned, and are incredibly temporary. Let him/her know what "beautiful" means to you...then they'll be like

  

  HEPPI HAPPIY HAPPY HEPPY JOYJOY YAYYAYYAYAYAYAYSHUYAYAYYYY!!!!!11!!11ON33EONEONE

  (please don't think that I'm saying it's USELESS what the people are doing, it's amazing. if you google post it notes smile or something along the lines, you'll see that their websites do much more than post it notes. I'm jsut saying..well...what i said in the last few paragraphs. It's the whole impersonal/personal thing)

   

   ALSO.

   I GOT 9000 VIEWS ON MY LAST POST. HERE.

  WTF?!?! Mind boggling, but I guess...thank you to all who viewed it, I didn't know that was 9000 views worth of interesting ness! haha

   

  

  • 9:13 pm
  • 17 Comments