True Beauty Takeaways: Love and Life Lessons

I've been watching True Beauty, a Korean drama series starring Cha Eun Woo, Moon Ga Young, Hwang In Yeop, and Park Yoo Na, for almost a week now and I finally got to finish watching it already. To those who don't know, it's a K-drama that talks about a High School student who is consistently being bullied by her classmates for being perceived as "ugly". She, later on, learned some make-up techniques by watching online which changed her life in an instant.

I initially wanted to watch this drama because I saw some posts on Facebook about this series being compared to My ID is Gangnam Beauty, which was also starred by Cha Eun Woo. I loved Gangnam Beauty because there were so many lessons I got from it and I could relate to the story because the characters were college students. So I gave this drama a chance and dedicated my time to watch it and I'm not disappointed because I enjoyed watching it too, although I found some scenes cringey.

And because I still couldn't move on from the drama, I will list down my takeaways from it or the love and life lessons I learned from the characters of the series.

"Grades don't always mean the world." -Teacher Han Joon Wo

Lim Ju Kyung was not just perceived as "ugly", but she also struggled with her studies that she always got low grades even if she tried so hard to study for her exams. It's what usually angers her mother because instead of focusing on her education, she is spending her time doing make-up.

However, having low grades do not actually mean that a student is not exerting efforts to improve them. It just happens that no matter how hard we try, we still couldn't get the result that we want from studying. But just like teacher Han said, grades don't always mean the world and it doesn't define who we are as a person. Having low grades do not mean we will end up being a failure in life.

"Fear only brings destruction." -Lim Ju Kyung

I felt cringey with this scene in the drama but I love the lesson that it taught me.

Sometimes, our fears only impede us from achieving our fullest potential and genuine happiness, and it also becomes the reason why we miss out on a lot of opportunities that come our way. Because of being fearful of what others might think of us if we reveal our true identity, it often leads us to self-destruction. So we should learn to conquer our fears so that nobody can use our mistakes and weaknesses against us.

"There's nothing you can do for a dead person." -Lee Soo Ho

Isn't it ironic how we put so much effort into someone already dead while we often neglect them when they were still alive? That even if we cry so much because we love and miss them, it won't matter anymore because our tears won't bring them back. So instead of ignoring our friends, family, and loved ones while they are still with us, we should spend our time and effort to make them feel loved because once they are gone, they wouldn't feel it anymore.

They also tackled suicide in this series, and Lee Soo Ho also said (nonverbatim) that before we decide to end our lives, we should think about those who will be left behind and how they would feel knowing that they weren't able to do anything to save us from committing suicide.

"You decide your own worth." -Lim Hee Kyung

Hee Kyung is Ju Kyung's older sister in the series and she was trying to console her sister because of being bullied. I loved how they were close as siblings and it made me want to have an older sister too.

Anyway, just like Hee Kyung said, "If you are confident, no one can touch you." So if you know your worth and you believe in yourself, nobody can hurt you even if they use your mistakes and weaknesses to bring you down. Know your worth and don't let anyone dictate your value as a person because if you let their opinions rule over your life, then you are just allowing them to look down on you.

Aside from these lessons that I've highlighted, True Beauty also taught about forgiving yourself from your past hurts and being forgiving enough to those people who have hurt you or have done something wrong to you. It also emphasized bullying that doesn't just happen in school but also inside our houses where even those who are close to us think of us as "ugly" or "stupid". It's also about having a genuine friendship and giving importance to it. Most importantly, it's about the kind of beauty that comes from within. That no matter how pretty you are if you have an ugly personality, it's useless. So we should all strive to be beautiful not just on the outside but also on the inside.

If I were to rate this series from 1 to 10, I would give this an 8 because I somehow liked the plot even if it was a little cliche, and I loved the artists who played the characters too. They were all good and lessons were learned from the drama.

Cheers to more K-dramas to watch!