You know what I find depressing as hell? It's aging celebrities that undergo a thousand surgical procedures in order to "look young." Newsflash: you don't look young - you look like a cyborg. You look scary. You look desperate. But the one thing you definitely don't look is young.
What the alternative? The alternative is to age gracefully. It doesn't take a hell of a lot of money (unlike plastic surgery), but it does take a little bit of effort. What it requires most of all is exercise. 30-60 min. a day is all. Not only is this healthy for you internally, it's healthy for you externally. You feel better . . . and you look better. One of my Karate teachers is a 55 year old woman. She looks fantastic. Not that I ever think I will achieve her level of fitness, but she can do pushups on her fingertips. Totally revolutionized my own perception of what it meant to grow older.
I think there's a moral level to this, as well. I think we older people have to set a standard for the young. And if we spend tens of thousands of dollars in the service of our own vanity, what message does this convey to the young? Moreover, plastic surgeons are MDs. There are people all over our country who are in serious need of medical care. What does it say about us as a country when so many millions have no access to health care at all while the rest of us seek out doctors not because we need them to heal us but because we want the doctors to help us feel less insecure about our looks?
It's time we began acting like grown-ups. We can begin by looking like grown-ups.
And loving ourselves for it.
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