Love what's underneath the clothes. You, not all that other external stuff.

It's hard not to get caught up in all the superficial, materialistic madness of modern America. Believe me, I know. Social media has taken a large presence in our society and has created a culture of instant gratification. Trends are always coming and going, and it's always a scramble to keep up. People compete through these superficial outlets to see who can stay on top of it all the best. But chasing these external, materialistic goods somehow leaves us feeling empty at the end.

The weekend of crazy savings and deals has come and gone, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday in its wake. I bring this up, because I would normally go off the deep end, and shop until my bank account went completely dry. I would buy an armful of things that I didn't need, and it would create a sort of shopping high.

That's retail therapy, and despite the misleading name, it's not necessarily a good thing.

We see the shirt, or the dress, the shoes - whatever it may be - and there is something so magnetic about it. Whether it looks flattering on that mannequin, or you saw it on that famous celebrity from the screen, or on the myriad of girls at your school, the appeal is in the fact that you've seen what it can do for others, and you want it to do that for you. It looked good on him, or her, or on that mannequin, or on that model, and you want to look good too. You want it for yourself. It will make you beautiful.

It's an allusion really.

You see how these clothes can make you look, so you buy them, in hopes of looking something like that. It's a way to better yourself, to look like that woman in the magazine. It's a cover-up, a way to make yourself more like the others around you.

You shouldn't feel like you need to look - or be - like them.

A shirt is just a bunch of fabric sewn together, it's nothing really. A shirt doesn't make you beautiful.

We can't hide behind our clothes. It's easy to do.

Once we throw on something trendy, it becomes exceptionally unremarkable. It's not really special in any way. It may make you feel pretty, but that was part of the appeal in the first place, wasn't it? It made that other person look good, so you convinced yourself that you wanted it to look good too.

But once it's on, there's nothing there that really separates you, nothing that makes you exceedingly beautiful, or really stick out from the crowd.

You see, the thing that will make you stick out, the thing that truly defines your beauty, never had a price tag.

It's the stuff that was always yours.

It's what no one else has, cause it's your own. I wish I had known this sooner. So much of my time has been spent trying to keep up with modern beauty trends, but even when I was able to stay on top of them, I never felt satiated. It never made me feel truly beautiful, cause it was always superficial and unexceptional.

But true beauty is in what was already yours. The things that define you - the things that make you exceptional and beautiful - they are completely free and made just for you.

That's what makes them beautiful.