We’ve all seen them- the gorgeously “built” exotic swimsuit models- on the covers of magazines, in videos, on television, and we’ve all felt the twinges of jealousy. Whether you’re male or female, seeing something or someone that you feel is superior to yourself is going to cause the feeling of jealousy. At a minimum, you’ll feel insecurity about yourself. It’s human nature to feel that way.

While those who are plastered all over billboards, grace the covers of magazines, and are all over internet and television are beautiful and exotic- that doesn’t mean that the “average” person is no less beautiful. The problem with society is that people have been “conditioned” to think that there is a “standard” and a “norm” when it comes to beauty- so if they don’t fit in with what they think society’s standards are- they think themselves not beautiful.

Exotic swimsuit models, both male and female, have to keep themselves in optimum shape, keep their bodies healthy and take good care of their skin as well. If you envy them, envy them for the discipline it requires to be able to maintain their looks and optimal body condition- because they have no choice. Their bodies are their way of making a living. But don’t be jealous of the fact that their income is based largely on how they appear to others- be thankful that you don’t have that kind of pressure!

While these models are gorgeous, and they look great on the cover of magazines- keep in mind that that may be all they have going for them. You can’t tell, by looking at someone’s photograph, what kind of life they really have or what kind of personality they have, whether they are happy or not.

A photograph, while pleasing to look at, can’t show a person’s life, their inner self or anything about them. So in essence, when you see a photograph of someone who is society’s accepted standard of “beautiful,” you are seeing the “mask” they wear for the camera. The media, and society in general, has gotten to where they would have the average person believe that if they just looked like these exotic swimsuit models and other ‘beautiful people’, they’d be happy and their life would be perfect.

The truth is, nothing in life is perfect- no individual is perfect- and simply because someone is aesthetically pleasing and graces the cover (or inner pages) of a magazine, doesn’t mean that they are happy or have a perfect life. The reason the average person envies these “beautiful people” is because the average person is insecure, and doesn’t even realize their own self-worth or potential.

Because of society’s standards of beauty being so skewed, the average person will never realize how beautiful they really are. This is why women starve themselves in attempts to be thinner than they should be, men do serious damage to their bodies using steroids and lifting weights, and people of both sexes risk the possibility of skin cancer by getting a “fake” tan using tanning beds.

We’re jealous of exotic swimsuit models, and it’s all because we refuse to see them as humans- just like us- and see our own individual beauty in ourselves.