Finding Value at the Bottom of the Barrel

Leave it to me to introduce a website that attempts to help people get opinions about their looks at the same time that the world is facing a catastrophic economic mess, when the health care of the nation is at risk, and when hearts are breaking all over the world for the Haitian and Chilean people. Talk about bad timing. A website about “our looks” seems pretty superficial against that backdrop.

Yet, that’s what I did. I created and am trying to promote MyLooksOnline.com. It’s a service that offers honest opinions about people’s looks. There’s a huge part of me that is ashamed of the time I’m spending on this venture when my time could be so much better spent on more humanitarian efforts.

How do we value worthwhile pursuits? Or, perhaps the more pertinent question is “how do we rationalize all of our pursuits?” I’m tempted to suggest that providing people with the opportunity to receive opinions about their appearance rests at the bottom of the barrel. In fact, the barrel might look like this:

1. Charitable causes
2. Educational pursuits
3. Health-related work
4. Environmental-related work
5. Spiritual assistance
6. The remaining 120 billion work-related business and services, excluding Entertainment
7. Entertainment
8. Offering opportunity for people to seek opinions about their looks

Yet, when I began development of the site, I had relatively noble ambitions. I argued that looks are important and that people deserve the opportunity to find out how they could improve their looks. After all, not all of us are going to win a guest spot on What Not to Wear. I further argued that those who didn’t look as good as they could, would be somewhat disadvantaged in our looks-are-everything culture. It seemed a lofty enough goal. Not exactly the American Red Cross, but not gossip column either.

It’s not until I put the site in context with the economy, Haiti, Chile, and overall world hunger and poverty that it smacks of trivia. Granted, not everything we humans do can be reduced to the same standard of valuation, but isn’t it safe to say that some occupations and services are more contributory than others?

So…we do what we can. In a somewhat self-serving way, we try to remove the “ficial” from the superficial by finding avenues where value and meaning can be created. It allows us to feel good about what we’re doing. At My Looks Online, our focus is on looks. And, in a much more precious way, so is it with the Smile Train organization. This is where doctors repair the smiles of children. It’s why My Looks Online plans to donate 10% of income generated from the site to this organization. Bottom line – It elevates our bottom-of-the-barrel position and contributes a beautiful smile to the world. I like that.