Are We Wasting Our Precious Time on Earth Worrying About Beauty Standards?

Not to take this to a morbid place, but we have one life, and it’s not going to last forever. And the only thing we’ll have for the duration of that limited lifetime is…well, ourselves.

Our bodies are our forever homes, yet we live in a world that makes us spend our time fixating on all the things that are wrong with those bodies. This has always been a thing, especially for women. I don’t know if there was ever a time when women weren’t made to feel like their value could be distilled down to how closely they matched up to the beauty standard. But now, there’s more to process than ever…and it’s exhausting.

That’s why, when I came across this post on Instagram, I literally let our a massive sigh of relief. We spend so much time and energy in 2026 thinking about all the ways we can alter our looks, and at some point…well, it kind of feels like a waste of time.

In the video, creator Hayley Hoover points out the amount of time we spend thinking about “hip dips and lip flips and microdermabrasion and lipo 360” and protein intake and…well, all the things. Honestly, I’m tired just beginning to think about the full list of aesthetic pursuits Hoover mentions. 

I reached out to Hoover and she told me a bit more about the inspiration for the video. 

“This video is really a message to myself,” she said. “It came to me after a long scrolling session, where I just felt totally bombarded by man-made terms for man-made concepts that were created just to stir up my insecurities. I really needed to remind myself that I don't have to let beauty industry marketing get under my skin.”

Listen, this is all so complicated. I believe we as women have the right to do the things that make us feel better about ourselves — and if that includes calculating the optimal amount of protein proportionate to our body weight, or going under the knife, or getting Botox, or whatever…that’s for each of us to decide.

But I do think it’s important that we realize how all-consuming these standards have become, and how hard they’ve made us on ourselves. 

We don’t have forever in our bodies. And I’ve got to say it: We’re wasting some of that precious time.