Paranoia Posed In Saintly Rows Outside My Window.

Why do we as a people, more so women, focus on such a trivial thing as aesthetics? In the category of aesthetics itself we even focus on the trivial aspects; painting our nails, applying make-up with surgical precision, straightening our hair, dropping that 'last five pounds.' It's an idea that crosses my mind as I paint my nails or apply my make-up or criticize my body in the mirror before each shower. Why does this matter? Will losing weight help me do better in college? Will having chipped nail polish mean that I'll never have a boyfriend or that my current one will break up with me? Will not being a size XX ever detriment my quality of life?
By now most people are jumping to the same conclusion that I did; something like 'all of these things ARE pointless. I'll just stop bothering with them.' But wait a second, hear me out.
The more I toy with the idea and delve into my personal experiences, the more I realize that we don't do them for our futures or to please our significant others (even if we do we shouldn't.) I realized that most of the time I do these things to raise my self esteem and to make myself feel pretty. Maybe women do these things because if we don't respect and like ourselves then who will?
So I apply my make-up to perfection every morning and I carefully paint every nail and I work my ass off to shrink those parts of my body that I find undesirable and I would have it no other way. It's human nature to want to better yourself, why not start with the easy outside bits?

Personally, I find myself unable to assign meaning or reason to getting dressed nicely or doing my make-up well, especially at points in the week such as this; my boyfriend is more than an hour away, it's Monday and I'm exhausted, but I continue to do so because it makes me feel better about myself. So why the fuck not?
And it definitely makes me feel awesome to shove it in Mark's face that plenty of other people get to see me look bangin and he doesn't. Hahaha.