I sit still on a hard, rather uncomfortable chair, watching as my fingers cast dancing shadows upon my table, as the dimmed light from the rear end of my desk flickers, almost creepily; my eyes shift, my attention now fully on the stacks of magazines that lie between my textbook and mug of hot chocolate. The smell of hot chocolate fills my nostrils, I utter a small sigh of satisfaction. My attention now back upon those magazines- as I wonder what beauty really is.

I try so very hard to undergo one of those movie-like transitions to some esoteric dimension. I fail and then, almost immediately, shut my eyes.

We spend too long staring at the picture in the mirror, examining every tiny aspect of this image. Reciting the words "If only my stomach was a little bit flatter," "If only my eyes were like hers," scrutinizing each pimple on our face, each mark on our arm, wishing day upon day that our legs were longer, body was leaner, hair was silkier. We sigh, grumble and groan at what we see in that wretched mirror, because we're getting messages right and left, from magazines, ads, campaigns telling us that a size zero and a toned body and a face that's absolutely flawless (covered with make-up and edited) makes the cut. That if you don't look like this, dress like that, you aren't beautiful. You shove diet pills down your throat, when the only thing you're losing is self-esteem. You shudder every time you look at that little number before the lbs sign on your weighing scale. When in reality, beauty can't be found in a magazine, it can't be in the little pink pills, nor is it a powdered face and injected body.

True beauty, the real stuff, that, lies within you, and me, it lies within each and everyone of us.

Don't glare at the next commercial you see and wish you were like her- the size of your hips doesn't define your beauty. It's the size of your heart. Not the length of your legs, but how far you'd stretch to help someone out. Beauty is not a number. Beauty is you.