Vanity vs Insanity

When I use the word vanity, I realize it is subjective. What one person considers vain, another considers essential. Webster defines vanity as something valueless or empty. As an image consultant I see the value of taking pride in ones appearance, mostly because I understand that society and human nature dictates that how we look has a direct impact on the people and opportunities we draw to us. There is a fine line between taking pride in ones appearance and vanity. In turn, an even finer line between vanity and insanity. Like a disease, society's expectations of beauty are eating away at our very identity. Hollywood and the media dictate what you should look like, and for some reason, it is causing perfectly logical and sane people to abandon who they are and conform to some ideal. An unachievable one at that!  Were an unproportionately high number on Southern Californian women born with breasts too large for their emaciated frames and frozen faces? Every woman wants to be valued as an individual, and yet the growing trend is to purposely rid ourselves of what makes us a wonderfully unique individual. We grumble that we, as women, aren't taken seriously, respected or valued. But are we telling our children, mates, friends and colleagues that we take ourselves seriously, respect and value ourselves? Not when we dislike our appearance, our very identity, so much that we are willing to surgically alter our appearance, inject toxins into our face, and eat barely enough to sustain our bodies? If you don't like a personality trait you have, you may work to change that trait because you deem that part of you to be undesirable and worthy of changing. So, my stand is that when you change your appearance in such high risk ways, you're telling yourself and others, that there is something so wrong with you that not only needs fixing, but it is so undesirable that it's worth risking your health, even your life to fix it.  Webster Dictionary defines insanity as something utterly foolish or unreasonable. I rest my case!