Packaging or Content?

Imagine this for a moment:
 
I go to the supermarket and buy a box of fish fingers.  Upon
getting home and, being hungry, I quickly stuff the fish fingers
together with the box into the oven. I turn up the heat and wait 20
minutes.
 
Once that’s done, I take the fish fingers (still in the box) out
from the oven, open the box, throw away the fish fingers and eat
the … box!
 
I hear you shouting,”No, No, Ethan, eat the fish fingers. Not the
box!”
 
Oops! If I really ate the box instead of the fish fingers, you’d
think that I’m crazy.
 
But guess what? That’s what most of us do on a daily basis! We
value our packaging more than what the packaging is carrying.
 
You see, we spent incredible amounts of time and effort looking
after our packaging, i.e. our bodies. We dress it up and get very
concerned with how it looks. We groom it. We take supplements and
medication to keep it young. Some of us even use surgery to change
the parts we don’t like.
 
Everyday we are concerned whether our body and outer appearance,
i.e. our packaging, looks good or not, young or old, handsome or
not, pretty or not, fat or thin, tall or short, tidy or not,
muscular or trim, with hair or bald, long hair or short hair, big
hips or small hips, large breasts or small breasts…just take a
minute to observe what a person does when he/she walks pass a mirror.
 
We far too often put too much emphasis on how other people will see
us.
 
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we should not look after
our bodies and appearances. Our “packaging” does serve a purpose
and we should maintain it well such that our “contents” are well
contained.
 
What I’m saying is that our “packaging” is fading away day by day
and it should not be something that is more important than the
“contents” that our body holds.
 
What, then, are the contents?
 
Our mind and spirit made up by our personality, character,
emotions, beliefs, and values. These are the”things” that make up
who we really are.
 
How well our body operates and how “good” we look on the outside is
often a reflection of how well we are faring inside emotionally.
Our body will remain young if our mind remains young. We will look
happy if our spirit is at peace with ourselves and the world around
us.
 
I am saying that we should be giving priority to our real self
(i.e. who we really are) instead of what we appear to be on the
outside.
 
When our mind is at peace, healthy and strong, our lives will
follow suit.