Embracing the Average

The Dove company, makers of soap and other personal care products has established it's marketing as embracing the beauty of all.  They started with the Dove Evolution videos, in which they showed the transformation of a model from her everyday girl on the street look to her magazine ready look to show people that this ideal to which we all aspire is an illusion created by artists.

They followed up with the Dove Beauty Sketches: You're More Beautiful Than You Think videos.  These encouraged us to realize that while we focus on our flaws others do not.  I'm on board with this, and it has gotten Dove a lot of attention as these have gone viral.  There are others, but these are the two that became the most well known.

I applaud Dove for these efforts and hope they will continue to make women of all races, sizes, and looks learn to appreciate themselves.  They have one experiment that I take issue with, however, because it seems to be asking us to deny a basic fact.  It is the Choose Beautiful experiment.  They replaced the signs above the entrance doors to a store with the words "Average" and "Beautiful."  They then recorded women as they entered.  Any woman who is like me probably didn't notice the signs, to begin with, and just entered whichever door they habitually entered, but you can see in the video that some women saw and paused to consider their choice.  Here's where I am bothered rather than inspired.  Any woman who entered the door marked Average was stopped and told that she should embrace the idea that she is beautiful.

Let's recognize a couple of basic facts.  First, by definition, most people are average.  If everyone is beautiful, no one is beautiful.  I'm not saying that everyone doesn't have some uniquely beautiful thing about them or that everyone doesn't have some special gift.  I absolutely believe that God has given everyone what they need to do what he has given them to do.  However, the idea that no one should see themselves as average is just a silly idea.

Second, the most beautiful women don't look the same every day.  Perhaps she is sick or hasn't slept well.  She may know that she is less beautiful today than she normally is.

Third, and most importantly, let's stop thinking of average as a bad thing.  Average isn't bad.  It isn't ugly.  It isn't something to shun or deny.  It is exactly what it is.  It is average.  Our culture has become so obsessed with the superlative that we can't be satisfied anymore.  A meal isn't worth eating if it isn't the best meal I have ever eaten, worthy of posting on Instagram.  A Disney cruise is somehow deficient if I don't have the luxury passes for everything.  Prom isn't just supposed to be fun; it has to be magical.  We don't post pictures with a friend that says we are friends.  We say, "my whole heart."  Setting aside the idolatry of that, let's just address that it isn't true.  That person is not your whole heart.  No matter how good a friend they are to you, they are one person in your life that you love.

With the best of intentions, Dove took something away from the women who went through the average door.  They took away their sense of self-assessment.  The attempt to make everyone think they are beautiful seems loving, but it still means I have to believe you and not myself.  In the same way that kids who got trophies they hadn't earned actually felt worse when they looked at it, telling everyone to view themselves as beautiful is making them feel worse when they evaluate the image in the mirror.  Getting a compliment on something you don't personally believe to be commendable leads to insecurity and a sense of imposter's syndrome.  "If only they knew," you will think.

My blog is supposed to be about education, so let's look at this academically.  Telling every kid that they are the best student ever seems loving, but they know their weaknesses better than you do.  When you compliment something they feel bad about, it just makes them feel worse.  Instead, have them engage in some reflection.  If they don't like what they've done, don't tell them they are wrong.  Ask them why.  Ask them what they would do differently if they could do it again.  Teach them the humility to embrace the fact that they aren't the best at everything, but they can get better at anything.

Statistically, unless you are in a school for the academically gifted, you teach mostly average kids.  That means they will be very good at something and mediocre at others.  Embrace that, and teach them to embrace it.  They should want to grow in everything, which they can't do if they are already being told they are amazing at it.  Help them develop their strengths, and help them see how they can grow in their weaknesses.  Do not try to make them think they will be the best in the world at their weaknesses in the belief that it will be motivating.

Which door would you walk through?  Some of you may rightly walk through the "Beautiful" door.  I would walk through the "Average" door and then be proud of my self-awareness, but I have a long history of not caring what other people think.