Boob Jobs and The End Of The World

Tragedies come in many forms, even heart-shaped butts. The deadly risks of cosmetic surgery appeared in headlines again last week after the death of Solange Magnano, a former Miss Argentina, on November 29th. The model suffered a pulmonary embolism after a gluteoplasty to get a firmer butt. You may recall a similar story about the mother of Kanye West a couple of years ago. She also died from complications resulting from plastic surgery. I’d be understating the matter to call Magnano’s death needless. Did I mention she was a mom? Well, she was also a fool.

Fools by definition are people who lack good judgment. This group would include the majority of our elected officials, cult members, and generally everyone ever at some point in their life. You’ve probably had one of those “What was I thinking?” moments. We all lack good judgment from time to time, but most of us don’t lose our lives over it. I just have a hard time thinking of many reasons that could be more idiotic to die for than a tight butt.

Someone who drinks until they’re hammered and drives around town is also a fool, the only difference is that they might take the lives of others. There’s a lot of power in recklessness. I’m not talking about calculating criminals but rather self-serving seekers trying to control the uncontrollable. This recklessness just confirms my theory that we all hide private longings, those secret somethings that make special people less than special when you see them behind the curtain. Just ask Tiger Woods. Like Henry David Thoreau said, most of us lead lives of quiet desperation.

That quiet desperation leads folks to do some pretty stupid things. We’re aware that no one will understand because the reality is that we are often wrong in our hidden desires and we know it. We keep selfish versions of the life we want to ourselves.  In the process we pile up regrets until one day deciding that we’ve suffered enough and that we deserve whatever it is that self-appointed martyrs claim as their deathright. Lost along the way are all the blessings we’re too blind to see and all the people who suffer from our mistakes.

At some point during childhood, Twisted Sister told me that people want what they can’t have. Turns out that’s one of the truest and most lasting lessons I’ve learned. We want it all.  We want. Tell the ugly duckling to understand a beauty queen unhappy with her posterior. Tell a barren wife to understand a mother who gets trashed with kids in the backseat. Try to understand anytime someone else throws away the very life you’ve long dreamed of.

Two decades later, that same sister just called to wish me a happy birthday. She asked how it felt to turn another year older. I asked her if guys could use eye cream for wrinkles without being laughed at. Her fiance laughed at me. Such is the cost of vanity. Sometimes it’s higher. 

Movies are occasionally good for perspective, so some friends and I went to see 2012 (big thumbs up), the end of the world epic which will literally make you tense up for 2 hours. The story didn’t end so well for one attractive character with breast implants. On our way out of the theater, I heard someone laying out their emerging perspective. “You see,” said the girl, “that’s why I won’t get a boob job. Cause in the end it just won’t matter.” Now there’s a take home message that Miss Argentina could’ve used.

We are capable of pursuing all those things we hope will make our lives better even if we risk losing everything. Some folks might gain the whole world for the price of their soul, but most people fight the everyday battle of being ordinary. There’s nothing wrong with just being who you are. If you would aspire to anything, try becoming the man or woman you are supposed to be rather than the one you want to be.

Most people don’t know the rest of that Thoreau quote. He said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Interpret the metaphor how you will. That song is as personal to each of us as our grave. In the end, we are called to search ourselves for what we have to give rather than searching the world for all the empty things we want.