"The Birthmark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne was an interesting story that can be applied to what we see in society today.  The story talks of a woman who was born with a hand shaped birthmark on her cheek.  Her husband tells his wife that she is perfect but that her birthmark brings out this sort of ugliness that he cannot stand the site of.  This is something that she has had to live her whole life and is already insecure about it.  The husband is constantly trying to create a cure for it and she finally breaks down accepting to try this scientific remedy he has created.  After taking the potion she goes to sleep and the mark begins to disappear, little did they know that the disappearance of this would be her death.

After reading this story it really made me think about how we see people in our world and the society around us.  We constantly are being shown these images of people who everyone would consider desirable and perfect at some levels.  Needing perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect skin, placing this false image of needing to only see gorgeous things on the outside.  None of us on this planet are perfect we were all born with some kind of defect and it does not always have to be on the outside.

A personal example for me would have to be my cousin Nicole.  She was born with down-syndrome and cannot help the way that she is.  Sure sometimes people stare at her and point or make ignorant comment like "hey look at the retard" but they are seeing the outside and not the inner beauty.  Nicole is one of the most fun-loving people in the world, she lives her life not listening to what people are saying about her but makes a difference by letting it role off her should and not being consumed in that rudeness showing the world that she is a strong woman who has had to overcome some obstacles in her life.  One night I had heard my aunts and my father discussing Nicole, and not once did I hear them ridicule her or wish that she was never around because of her sometimes embarassing antics.  We have accepted her for the person we see on the inside, the girl who just wants to have fun and play out in the yard with her sheep dog Paco.

I think that sometimes people have a hard time trying to see the good inside of people rather than just looking at the outside because we have become a society that is too busy to take time for anything.  We look and immediately make decisions because we do not want to make and effort to, we do not have the time to slow down.  I sometimes wonder is we just slow down a  little and stop rading so much into what is beauty and what is not we would have a lot less problems in the world, maybe even a lot less unneeded surgeries to enhance ourselves for the sake of beauty.  Just take a look at Michael Jackson, he is a prime example of someone who was beautiful on the inside and so talented, and then he got sucked into how he was looking on the outside that he now looks like some kind of alien from another planet.  Plain and simple though I think we all need to not judge people because we ourselves are not perfect.