Searching for that one beauty product that would work the wonders it promises seems like a tedious, never-ending task. Some call it impossible, while others have already found the treasures they were looking for and are able to presently cease the arduous search.
A hovering military helicopter above the rough sea waters. A couple of stranded holiday makers floating off debris from a recent shipwreck. Armed men draping themselves with protective gear and life-saving equipment before channelling down to carry out some very important rescue work. Finding that one eyeshadow shade to make your look some minutes before a significant event (say, a TV interview) is just like being pulled out of the treacherous waters before death seeps in and tampers with your reputation forever. I suppose I don’t have to explain what finding the wrong shade means.
When being presented with too many choices end up meaning we have none.
But sometimes – most of the time, actually – it’s not about crucial matters like that. It’s more of taking months to find the right dress to wear to prom at the end of the year, or of countless baking episodes to get the right mix of ingredients that would make the best kind of tarte tatin anyone’s ever tasted. And once you’ve finally found it, after all those incessant trials, everything fits. Life is perfect again.
That is, until something changes. And we all know how people are generally averse to change. The formula feels different; there’s a new ingredient and an old one is replaced, or some “new, advanced” technology is introduced into the manufacturing process. The packaging changes and suddenly the compact doesn’t feel like the other part of a jigsaw in my hand anymore. The price increases but my disposable income doesn’t. Or worst: I develop eczema – an allergic reaction to the very product that I love – which pounces upon my poor bereaved soul each time I so much as touch it fleetingly.
So time calls for a new search. A new round of never-ending (seemingly), expensive semi-in vivo tests on ourselves, filled more often than not with tribulations, failures, disappointments and wastes. In the case of a love that has to be let go, doubt triumphs above all else. Above the possibility and hope of finding a new, better product that fits. When it’s about finding a first love, on the other hand, excitement tops it all but can gradually give way to resignation, abandonment and sometimes settling for something below expectations. Many flings and dates, but none which makes it to the status of a true love.
Does the “right product” really exist? If we don’t find it, is it karma? Are we fated to never meet? After all, not everyone needs the same thing and maybe my holy grail is just rarer than others’. Maybe we’re not looking hard enough or are looking in all the wrong places.
It’s not for the weak-hearted. It’s for those of us who, upon meeting failure after failure, continue to persist and try again. It’s for those of us who never give up hope of finally getting there one day. It’s for those of us who can accept rejection and in this sense, our own rejection of the very things we try. And it’s for those of us who see the light at the end of the very long, winding, obstacle course-filled tunnel, and even if we don’t, we can envision its actuality. And when we finally get out of that tunnel, we just wish there isn’t another one to go through again.
TODAY’S RANDOM
Short bread via {link url="http://www.gilttaste.com/products/84795940-heritage-shortbread-heritage-shortbread-half-gallon-tin"}Glit Taste{/link}.
Image credits: Explow.com