Plastic surgery to augment ones "beauty" is often used by celebrities and commoners alike.
It is so commonplace, that it has become a business by itself for many millions of doctors across the world.
The connection with medicine and trauma treatment is almost but forgotten.
Gone are the days when it was used mainly for correcting disfigurement due to accidents or age.
Nowadays healthy adults who are barely past their teens resort to plastic surgery to look "better".
But is this situation suggestive of a greater malady? In the modern day world of fast paced lives, investment in health has become a "time-consuming" affair.
Thus in many sections of affluent society it has come to pass the people prefer to just "remove the fat" than to sweat it down to size.
Exercise is the time consuming and arduous way of getting into shape.
Obese individuals instead of changing their life styles- check into a hospital and get into shape within a week! Even among those individuals that are healthy and exercise frequently, there are some who want to "straighten their nose a bit" or "raise their cheekbones a few millimeters".
Such individuals are even more vain, aiming to achieve an impossible idea of being beautiful.
Their lives are so focused on all things material, that they do not pause to consider the risks they are subjecting themselves to for the sake of a few comments from "well-wishers".
And then further up the scale of foolishness are those that want to "experiment" with a new look.
Michael Jackson must be the best example of the "experimenters" - using their health and their appearance as a test bench for the latest in plastic surgery.
However as we have seen, there is a price to pay and this fact tends to get overlooked the by the newbies in the business.
We as a society should take a strong hard look at our value systems, or rather a lack of any coherent value system.
In the absence of a strong value system which gives a correct and proportional importance to relevant issues, trivial needs become fashionable and extremely desirable.
People start trading their health, which is of infinitely more value than what they get in return - a few appreciative comments from friends and peers.
Lives are destroyed because of botched surgeries, which were never necessary in the first place! Self beautification is an age old concept.
People for many centuries have done various things to look better and more desirable.
Manipulating hair or skin color has traditionally been the limit to this obsession with beauty.
At worst one became bald or lost some skin tone.
However plastic surgery has helped many, to cross the line that separates narcissism from self-defeating and aberrant self-obsession.
The use of plastic surgery for trivial "touch-ups" indicates severe deficiencies in our present day value systems.
This trend should be actively stopped with due legislation, before many more minds are permanently damaged with this unreal self-obsession.