Happy Chinese New Year everybody!
During this season, people love having new things. My neighbour paints his wall and gate almost every year, you can see a lot of cars washed sparkling clean and some painted new, everyone has new clothes to wear, and there are so many more examples of people wanting their stuff new.
Having said all that, I had some thoughts on wearing new clothes and would like to express them out.
Discounts and sales are everywhere because people love buying new clothes for Chinese New Year. I often hear friends talking about going shopping, I went shopping together with my family, and just this week at least two friends of mine had new shoes. On New Year's day I am certain that most people will put on their new clothes.
However, of all the items that I hear my friends talk about I have never heard anyone mentioned about new underwear. Neither have I seen them purchase new underwear. Of course I too, did not buy any new underwear.
Is it human nature to give more attention to what people can see compared to what people do not see?
"No one knows what underwear am I wearing, so can use cheap(even torn) ones; other things people can see, so must buy Converse, Levis, Nike....."
Similarly, do we focus too much on our appearance and talents that we have forgotten to monitor and take care of our inner being?
Go for haircuts to trim off excess, bad looking hair. But for the bad stuff that are in our hearts, we leave it to grow.
Go to gymnasiums to build muscles. But for the character within, we do not build.
We do so many things to make ourselves more good looking but only outwardly, who gives a damn about what's on the inside?
We watch the way we talk but ignore the way we think, we force ourselves to behave no matter how it makes us feel...
We become so conscious about how people view us, but we lose sight of ourselves.
Why make ourselves so miserable just to gain approval and acceptance?
Sometimes I think social ethiquette is hypocrisy.
Besides trying to make ourselves look good and best-presented, the way we look at others is also more than often, focused on the outward.
You look at the brands of t-shirts, jeans and handbags people use, you look at the cellphones people carry, you look at the cars they drive, but who takes notice of the underwear or socks?
Similarly again, we sometimes focus on appearance, talent and personality more than character.
Is inner beauty so unimportant?
For man looks on the outward...
