I was looking for some inspiration the other day. I was writing poetry, and looking for some nature scenes to inspire me. So, I typed the word beauty into Google Images. Immediately, a variety of pictures flooded my screen, all supporting the internet's definition of the word "beautiful." Had I been a normal human being, I would've just typed a more specific search, but something had caught my eye.

If you type the word beauty into Google Images, the first twenty images that come up are different pictures of women with a similar physique. They are mostly pictures from the shoulder up, showcasing women wearing makeup and posed in a way that illuminates their facial features. A majority of these women have the same shaped face and a dramatic look to them.

They are, without a doubt, beautiful; however, they lack diversity. Many are thin, all are visibly wearing makeup, and all are women. No men appear as results for this search, and women of color and varying nationalities do not appear until after the first 20 images. That made me think. Why is beauty seen so narrowly by the nation today?

So, I typed beauty into a variety of different sources, and I got all different kinds of results. I was seeing images of products that claim to make you more beautiful, products that help you to look a certain way and articles making a direct correlation between their top of the line product and being beautiful. A lot of the people who were "beautiful" to the internet were models and celebrities; a lot of people who look nothing like me or the people around me.

That doesn't mean that we aren't beautiful, and I know that. You don't need top of the line clothes, products and hair stylists to be beautiful. You don't need to be thin, curvy or have a certain body type. Beauty is not defined by race, by gender, by class, by sexuality, or by body type. It is determined by you. There is no wrong way to be beautiful. But that's not what society has been teaching us, at least not for very long.

I am 5'11" tall. The average pair of women's blue jeans has a 34-inch inseam. This is not long enough for me, so I have to get "long" or "tall" jeans. No big deal, right? Wrong. This means I either order online and hope for the best, or I shop near the holidays when they have all the sizes and lengths stocked.

So because I'm not average, does that mean that I should be limited? No. Just like "plus" sizes should be stocked in every store, just like clothing and makeup should not have a gender assigned to them, no one should be limited as to how they want to look. We are all beautiful, and there are different things that make each of us feel beautiful. Whether its a pair of jeans in the right size or length, a fresh coat of mascara, not wearing makeup, or wearing our hair a certain way, it's often looking the way that expresses who we are that makes us feel the most beautiful.

We do not fit inside a box. Society has no right to decipher how we feel or how we choose to dress. Beauty is an infinite sky, full of stars, each of which is different; each of which is beautiful. We are the stars and it's about time that all of us saw ourselves as such. Rather than society telling us that we have to look a certain way to be beautiful, it should be telling us how beautiful we already are and helping us to find the image which best expresses who we are in this life.

We are all born beautiful. The fact that we are alive is beautiful. People who do not know us, who have not seen our personalities and ambitions, should not define what beauty is. We, as a group of diverse beauty, should be able to define what is beautiful for ourselves. We have the right to look the way we want and still be recognized as beautiful people.