Do not mortgage your face

The USA and Brazil are the top two spots in the world for number of cosmetic surgeries performed in a year. China, with 2 million women going under the knife and the number doubling every year will soon replace USA.

Most want to enhance their looks but increasingly concerns are for those who want an entire replacement face from original into the face of their current idol.

Catch a beauty pageant in China or Korea and you will not be able to distinguish between the contestants as they all sport large eyes, western noses and sumptuous lips staring at you with a glazed, expressionless botox-face. Similarly, walk down Vietnamese town in Melbourne Australia, and every shop owners’ wife will have a familiar feign face from the work of the limited number of cosmetic surgeons operating in the suburb. You may also chance upon a "tai tai" mum looking more stunning than her teenage daughter strolling along Orchard Road in Singapore. Watch Korea's K-pop music scene and you will see walking advertisements of the country's top cosmetic surgeons.

Quite apart from making multi-millionaires out of already rich surgeons, this face-replacement fad has unintended social consequences in China. A man had successfully sued his wife for being ugly. He was granted a divorce and awarded damages on grounds his wife had deceived him into marriage. She did not reveal her face-replacement surgery undertaken a number of years before she met and then married him. He only came to know his wife’s previous looks from their first born daughter, who he claimed did not look like either of them and uncharacteristically ugly. He has now successfully added ugliness to adultery; insanity and cruelty as grounds for divorce in China.

Apart from the tendency to destroy each other, humans have another genetic flaw, judging others by their appearances. Research has shown that, most of humans form an opinion of someone within the first 5 minutes based solely on their looks and what they wear. An entire industry has emerged advising lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants on their aesthetic choices as psychologist have demonstrated convincingly that attractive defendants get lighter sentences than less appealing ones. The entertainment industry for centuries have further contributed to this genetic flaw joined by the marketing and personal health development industry.

What has gone wrong fellow humans?

So what happened to inner beauty? What happened to 'do not judge a book by its cover?' Thankfully it is still there, except that it only reveals itself with wisdom, old age or awakening.

Learn form the wise one, the old folk and the awaken one. Beauty is certainly not in the hands of the surgeon. Beauty is already in you, right from birth, you just momentarily forgot that it is there. Recognise and harness this beauty early in your life and you will see the futility of having to re arrange your face.

So take care humans, do not mortgage your face as it may turn out to be a non-refundable loan.