In a culture where celebrities are worshiped for their looks and a pretty appearance is a one-way ticket to popularity, plastic surgery has become much more main-stream. While nose jobs for graduation presents and Botox for fortieth birthdays are luxuries that aren’t necessarily “normal,” they’re becoming more common in certain parts of our country. While I can see the potential glamour behind picking out new features like a wardrobe, I would be terrified of being stuck in an endless cycle of botched procedures, never getting back to the way I originally looked.

Plastic surgery stirs images of celebrities like Dolly Parton or Jennifer Grey who barely resemble their younger selves; and while their transformations may be amplified under the limelight of fame, the addiction to surgery as seen in celebrities and socialites with unlimited money and famous surgeons has also become so normal in people like you and me. As with buying new clothes or getting a new haircut, we can become hooked on the rush of confidence that makes us feel like a brand-new person.

Some of these addicts might be sitting next to you at the dentist, or taking your order at a restaurant, or standing in line with you for coffee. We don’t know what they looked like years ago, so we don’t know how different they appear now.

But, on a day-to-day basis, there are plastic surgeries that help fix severe burns, skin diseases, deformities at birth, or other accidental botched medical surgeries. There are also people who make the mature decision for themselves to change without becoming addicted, and they don’t care whether they are viewed as superficial or not for choosing to do so.

I switch back and forth quite a bit when it comes to the topic of plastic surgery. People around us tell us our whole life we’re perfect the way we are, while we’re also told it’s our life and we should do what makes us happy and confident. Sometimes I lean toward staying the way we were made. Kids getting surgery because they’re made of fun seems drastic to me. But as I get older and gain more life experience, I’ve become seriously more accepting of people’s personal decisions. You will never understand the mental burden of hating the way you look unless you too have experienced it, which makes trying to understand plastic surgery more important now than ever.

If you have the money and the willing surgeon, you can technically do whatever you want with the blueprints of your appearance. But you will never be happy if you’re changing your face or your chest or your waist for someone else. I probably won’t be getting a nose job in the next few years, but if I did I would want people to see past the negative connotation of plastic surgery to improve good qualities or hide bad ones and want it to be for myself.

Medical advances never stop. Time when people only went under the knife for life or death situations is over. As quicker and better surgeries come along, plastics procedures do too. Plastic surgery is more accessible now than ever, and while I still want to slightly resemble myself at the end of the day, I think we need to recognize that everyone is different and should be able to decide that for themselves.