I recently came across an interesting article. It begins with these words: “Botox may smooth your wrinkles, but it can dull your ability to understand the emotions of others.” The article references a study that suggests that the inability of facial muscles to express a person’s emotions may actually dampen that same person’s ability to perceive and connect with another’s emotions. The reverse, it seems, is also true, that “when the facial muscles are amplified, you get better at emotion perception.” The study proposes that people read emotions partly by mimicking facial expressions, so “if muscular signals from the face to the brain are dampened, you’re less able to read emotions.” The lead researcher that conducted the study, psychologist David Neal, warns Botox users to “consider whether these procedures are having any indirect costs—reducing their ability to empathize and understand people’s emotions.”
Botox paralyzes the muscles. Applied to facial muscles, it hinders certain facial movements—such as frowning—that produce wrinkles over time. The drug, therefore, reduces the development of this specific sign of aging. And so people use Botox primarily to improve how they look—that is, to hold on to that “young look” as long as possible.
I am not about to belittle the people who choose to apply Botox on their face, or to question their motives. I simply want to reflect on how the study provides an analogy for a biblical life-lesson, namely, that becoming overly concerned with self will hinder our ability to exercise Christian grace toward others. Scripture is filled with calls to practice humility and to extend love and compassion to others. But we will find difficulty in sustaining these Christian virtues if our greater concern is our image, our reputation, our advantage, our benefits, our comforts, our entitlements.
The words of Paul in Philippians 2.1-4 is one significant statement on this matter: “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” This reflects the very mindset of Christ himself (Philippians 2.5-8).
Christ also tells us that fundamental to becoming his disciple is that we must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow him (Luke 9.23). We must die to self; only then can Christ live through us.
—Keith Y. Jainga