Whenever I stumble upon someone in our generation trying too hard to look the part, I can’t help but feel we’re doomed. Well because each time I see one, it just adds up to the long list of those who do.
Social media perhaps has the biggest role in this pretentious attitude that most of us bear. When you seem to belong to what’s the trend or simply what you think people want to see then it seems you’re winning the internet. And this triumph doesn’t really mean a lot most of the time.
Marlou Arizala or whatever name he calls himself now was probably indoctrinated by Dr. Samuel Eric C. Yapjuangco of Iconic Clinic that changing his physical appearance would equate approval neglecting his personality. He is after all the same doctor whose patient died during a surgery. Shiryl Saturnino died after undergoing breast enhancement, liposuction, and butt surgery.
This may read disgusting but Yapjuangco is quite clever in sponsoring Marlou for his plastic surgery. It was Marlou who helped transform this doctor’s reputation. Poor Marlou because his attempt to look the part isn't stomached by the majority which only shows that Yapjuangco won over him. It was Marlou who quite enhanced his doctor’s reputation because I noticed that most of us didn’t know about his patient’s demise story.
The takeaway in Marlou attempt to look the part is that you can’t simply appear as someone you’re not, not until you genuinely work hard for it. Most of our necessities today may come in instant but when it comes to aiming success the classic way still saves the day. We don’t reach what we’re not instantly.
Though I am not at all against plastic surgery because of this, after all, it is our choice to make if we personally want to physically improve ourselves. But the thing is some doesn’t understand that improving something physically doesn’t make you look the part, it is a package of the inside and the outside.
It quite sends a message that most of us are lost. The Marlou narrative is just a single story of how social media changed how most of us in our generation behave. How most of us are distracted by false success and approval that we missed how to work hard for what we really love.
We all want to appear all successful and contented, but on an actual note, we are not.
Maybe Bob Ong was correct in his book ‘MACARTHUR’ which reads: Dalawang dekada ka lang mag-aaral. Kung di mo pagtitiyagaan, anak, limang dekada ng kahirapan ang kapalit. Sobrang lugi. Kung alam lang iyon ng mga kabataan, sa pananaw ko e walang gugustuhing umiwas sa eskwela.
Perhaps trying to skip some of the steps in life burdens us because we’re too distracted trying to reach the summit in an instant. This still is connected to our thirst for approval. Another factor is the sense of fear of missing out or FOMO. Yet missing out isn’t such a bad thing after all. Some simply get there earlier which doesn’t mean that you’re completely left out.
An example would be Benigno S. Aquino being the president at 57 years old while Gloria Macapagal Arroyo became the president during her 70th. Aquino became the president earlier while Arroyo on a later note, but it doesn’t mean that one is better because one got there first, right?
So please don’t fret, it’s not too late. The luxury of the young is the copious time left to redeem himself/herself. However, it only comes off as a luxury when it is not taken for granted.
Start working hard on it to wear off your thirst for success and desire for contentment because that’s the only road to it.