2005 - 7th Grade 4th Place:

Emily Sykes, Minnesota

Truth or Beauty?

As I was growing up my parents, and almost every other adult, told me that truth and honesty were very important qualities to have. I also found that they were hard to live out most of the time. For instance, if your best friend asked you what you thought of his/her new shirt, and you thought it was ugly, what would you tell them? Almost everyone I know would lie and say they love it, even though they really hate it. But then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so even if you give your honest opinion that person should have no problems with it because they asked for it.

I looked up the definition of truth in the dictionary and it said:
"Sincerity in action, character, and utterance",

…Which I assumed to mean that if you are sincere in everything you do and you are true to yourself then you are a truthful person. But not everyone is true to them self. A lot of people try to change who they are to fit in with a certain group. They change their appearance to look more "beautiful", but isn't true beauty inside of you?

When I was little I always wanted to be like my older sister because I thought she was cool. I would always want to do things with her and her friends and I wanted to be just like her. But I guess she got annoyed with me and told my mom. My mom told me that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't be exactly like her. I had to live my own life. Well, I could exactly grasp that concept because I was only five years old. But as I got older, I got more friends. I realized that I didn't want to be anyone other than myself. So I guess I figured out that since I was being myself, and not acting like any other person on this planet, I was a truthful person.

I think that truth and beauty are almost the same thing. If you are truthful you should be able to express your opinions and not have to lie to get someone to notice or like you. If you are beautiful, you don't have to be the prettiest person in the world - you just have to be yourself and people will like you because of who you are. So I guess you could say that truth and beauty are both within your heart.

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