Commentary
Wednesday, January 25,1995 Page 5
Quest for beauty found within
Appearance is literally how we
appear in front of others. The
famous saying, “the first impres
sion is the last,” holds true for all
times. How often do we recollect
having met a person in the past and
remark that we were struck by his
or her pleasant appearance, charm
and charisma?
A charismatic personality is a
combination of poise, good looks,
intellect and identity. Success of
personality is the result of continu
ous study, hard work and persever
ance.
Over the centuries, the idea of
beauty and personality has been
subject to the fluctuation of fashion
as much as individual perception.
There was a time when beauty
was thought to be found in per
fectly proportioned faces and
bodies that were voluptuous rather
than angular. Periods when faces
were ornately made up or left
ethereally pale, when freckles were
scorned or hair adorned, when
women painted, powdered and
patched — ducklings striving to be
swans.
• Today, beauty is more than a by
product of cosmetics. It lies deeper
within the skin, emanating from the
inner awareness and acceptance of
one’s own innate qualities and
values.
Concentrating on how to
maximize one’s good points and
diminish one’s faults is more
constructive.
Poise is tBe aspect of our
personality relating to how we
walk, sit, talk, greet and carry
ourselves. People with poise are
described as elegant, sophisticated
well-groomed. Poise is self
cultivated and entirely in our own
hands.
Yousuf Bashir
Confidence is the aspect of
personality molded over a period of
time, usually years. If we hold the
assumption that each one of us has
many hidden talents and that most
of us go through our lives undis
covered, we may begin to look for
our potential talents. Self-confi
dence and success can help one to
improve his or her self-image and
self-esteem.
When we believe nothing can
come between us and eventual
success, we begin to exude a
personality we did not know we
possessed. We endeavor, and ours
becomes a success story quoted
from person to person.
Physical fitness is an important
link in the personality chain; in
fact, it plays a key role. A healthy
body leads to a healthy mind. If
one is not happy with one’s own
self, it is more likely that he or she
may not be self-confident. Down
goes the self-esteem along with
this.
We also must learn to master
our own minds. If we let our minds
wander, our thoughts tend to take
control over us, resulting in hours
of futile thinking, which causes
creativity. And it is true that “an
empty mind is the devil’s work
shop.” So we must learn to master
our thoughts and not let our
thoughts become our masters.
Self-pity is a very strong
negative emotion and a favorite
with most self-indulgent humans
who have a lot of free time on their
hands. We must treat both triumph
and disaster as imposters. Never be
impressed by either.
The path towards love is through
lust, and beauty is the doorway to
it. I am a believer of “lust at first
sight” instead of “love at first
sight.”
It is necessary to take care of
your beauty. Skin is the mirror of
your body, and hair is your crown
ing glory. If we neglect our
appearance and even our intellec
tual development, this is the time
to take stock and begin reversing
the decline.
Perhaps very integral to our
concept of self is identity. One
must think of the importance of
one’s identity. We do not realize
that we are complete individuals in
ourselves. Identity recognition
comes from achieving something
through one’s own self.
Last but not least, and to me the
most important, is to have a sense
of humor, or else life would
become unbearable. Nature, in her
wisdom, gave human beings the
gift of laughter as a way of sur
mounting misfortune. Laughter is
indeed the best medicine. To be
able to laugh at one’s self is
probably one of the major secrets
of peace and well-being. Self
acceptance is the key to self
esteem.
Bashir is a senior food science major and
a Daily Nebraskan colnmnist
UNL policy worth listening to
“It is the policy of the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln not to
discriminate on the basis of sex,
age, race, color, religion, marital
status, veteran’s status, national or
ethnic origin or sexual orientation.”
I’m sure you’ve seen this
caption at the bottom of signs on
the university’s bathroom walls,
near your Health Aide’s room or in
some student or faculty handbook.
But have you ever really thought
about the weight of its meaning?
This policy is the affirmative
action guideline that the University
of Nebraska has followed since the
late ’60s. Maybe you didn’t know
we even had an affirmative action
policy, or perhaps it was something
you knew was out there, but you
didn’t realize you were reading it
every time you walked into the
bathroom.
Affirmative action is a difficult
issue for most students to have a
strong opinion about because most
of us haven’t been, or don’t realize
we’ve been, affected by it.
But the fact is that we’ve been
affected by this simple, one
sentence policy since the day we
entered this university. Within
these few words, the university has
encouraged its students to observe,
with reasonable effort, that UNL is
a diverse learning environment.
That is something students need in
order to be prepared for the real
world.
If immigration, birth rates and
other various population factors
continue to go as they have been,
by the year 2000, 85 percent of the
people entering the work force will
be either women or minorities.
That doesn’t mean that the
people in executive positions will
be women and minorities or that
\ there will be more equality in the
higher positions. But it does mean
Lara Duda
that the reality of competition and
survival will be based on how well
you adapt to a more diversely
competitive situation.
When I first noticed the little
blurb at the bottom of a Stress
Management Workshop flyer, it
seemed odd to me that the univer
sity had to actually make a visual
statement that it didn’t discrimi
nate. I thought that by the ’90s such
policies would be assumed.
Certainly I should hope no profes
sor or doctor at UNL would refuse
to help a student because of their
race, gender or sexual orientation.
In that sense, views of discrimi
nation, overall, have progressed
since affirmative action guidelines
were first implemented.
However, I recently read about
an anti-affirmative action move
ment at the University of Califor
nia-Berkeley that wants to overturn
programs that give minorities and
women any preferential treatment
for college admissions, jobs,
promotions and government
contracts. It’s called the California
Affirmative Action Initiative, and
it’s headed by two white, balding
scholars who look older than 40.
Besides the fact that I was
immediately suspicious when I saw
a picture of the men, their conser
vative appearances also made their
arguments not very surprising.
They believe, in a nutshell, that •
affirmative action guidelines
promote reverse discrimination and
preferential treatment.
First of all, the term “preferen
tial treatment” was bothersome
because it had such negative
connotations. I know that, at least
at our university, there’s no law
saying that even if a person isn’t
qualified, he or she should still be
given preference for a position
because of race or gender. Only if
two people are equally qualified do
you need to consider whether race
or sex could benefit the situation by
adding more diversity.
What scared me about the
initiative is if the only guideline is
not to discriminate against any
individual, then it’s as if we’re
going back to square one.
Haven’t we learned that humans
are innately biased? We have a
natural tendency to relate more to
someone of the same race or
gender. It makes sense. But on the
other hand, people tend not to think
of the big picture or consider the
necessity for diverse representation
in such a quickly diversifying
nation.
I don’t think our nation is to the
point yet where we can tear up our
written guidelines and depend on
our own human goodness to
perform in a nondiscriminatory
manner.
It amazes me to think how such
a simple sentence, which so many
of us read without any extra
thought, can bear the weight of
every individual character and his
or her freedom in this country. I bet
if we typed the little blurb on the
bottom of our syllabus instead of
fliers that remind us how stressed
we are, people would be more apt
to think about its meaning.
Dada Is a junior news-editorial and En
glish majorand a Dally Nebraskan colnmnlst
Only jurors escape
the O.J. overload
Damn, I wish I were on that
jury.
It’s not that I want to be away
from my family for six months.
It’s not that I want the notoriety.
It’s not that I want the macad
amia nuts in the hotel minibar.
What I want is to be seques
tered.
The way I figure it, the jury
only has to live with this
gawdforsaken trial eight hours a
day. The rest of us are going to
bed with you-know-who and
waking up with you-know-who.
Somewhere in the seven
months between the murders and
the trial, I became aversive,
allergic, anorexic to the story.
Now I start hyperventilating if I
see the initials.
Can’t watch it, can’t listen to
it, can’t read it, can’t drink it,
can’t bear it. Can’t get away
from it.
The case is like a force of
nature. Close your eyes and your
ears and it just seeps in through
your pores. It’s like sharing the
neighborhood air around
Chernobyl.
Here I am in our nation s
capital, riding up to the Hill to
talk about welfare reform, and a
local radio talk-show host is
wondering what the L.A.
prosecutor is going to wear to
court. I’m in another cab on
Pennsylvania Avenue reading
about the balanced-budget
amendment, and the driver is
psychobabbling about why
people kill for love.
, I’m in bed later, channel
surfing and suddenly I’m
drowning in you-know-which
citrus. I go from Larry King to
Geraldo to CNN to E.T. to Court
TV and there HE is, on 13
channels at the same time.
This morning, I sit at my
computer, eager to do combat
with the House biologist, Newt
Gingrich, who’s saying that
women in the trenches get
monthly “infections” and the
men are “little piglets.” But I am
being stalked by die man, the
trial, the coverage.
There was an ABC poll a
couple of weeks ago that said 84
percent of the American public
had OD’ed on you-know-which
initials. There were people
getting green at the sight of Kato
Kaelin and people longing to
spraypaint the next white Bronco
on the street. The media mon
grels say they’re watching
anyway. How, pray, can you get
away from it?
But if I were only a juror, oh
how different life would be. If I
were a juror, I’d get my newspa
pers pre-edited, trial-free and cut
up like paper dolls. The head
lines like “HE BEAT ME AS I
Ellen Goodman
CRAWLED” would be in the
recycle bin.
If I were a juror, they’d put a
bag over my head when I walked
by the newsstand so I wouldn’t
see the Newsweek, Spy, Exam
iner, Globe cover stories of you
know-which former football
player and which “bombshell”
that was set to explode in the
courtroom.
If I were a juror, they’d put a
block on my television so I
wouldn’t hear a word of you
know-which former Hertz
adman. All I could watch would
be Cary Grant on AMC and the
seven dwarfs on Disney. Dopey,
Sleepy and Bashful would be
such a nice change of pace from
Bailey, Cochran and Shapiro.
Of course I would have to pay
attention to what was happening
in the courtroom. But I would be
sheltered from the titanic battle
of the legal egos.
I’d also have to concentrate
on the evidence. But I would be
blissfully protected from the
cottage industry of commenta
tors speculating chi the redeem
ing social value of the coverage,
especially their own roles. I
wouldn’t be solemnly, soberly
and self-servingly told that this
trial was REALLY about
celebrities or spouse abuse or
' money or pathological liars or
race relations.
Left to my own devices,
spending a mere eight hours a
day on you-know-who, I might
be naively lulled into believing
that more important things were
going on outside the courtroom
than inside. Like, say earth
quakes and wars.
Devoid of interviews with the
neighbors of the people who
knew the family dog’s veterinar
ian, I might come to the conclu
sion that this case was about
murder. I might even — al
though this is a stretch — think
my job was to help decide
whether or not this man commit
ted two murders. Best of all, I
would have hours every evening
happily sequestered without
hearing the name O.J. Simpson.
Uh oh. I said it. I think I’m
getting hives.
(C) 1995 The Boston Globe Newspaper
Company
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Mike Luckovich
