Some teenagers believe that personal values are decided by their outside appearance rather than their inside potentials. To what extent do you agree with this viewpoint?

Which factor takes precedence over others in the defining of an individual's values has been an ever-changing matter of concern. While some adolescents voice their opinions, emphasizing the decisive role of outer beauty, I side with those who appreciate the importance of inner capabilities in assessing personal values. There are good grounds for saying that abilities matter more when it comes to determining one’s individual quality. It is generally perceived that personal values consist of everything from physical outlooks, characteristics, talents to beliefs, etc. However, all the glamour and beauty on the outside are only the cover. A handsome footballer may not necessarily be the outstanding one. Likewise, a less attractive appearance does not make a footballer less successful in his career. That is to say personal values should be assessed using other factors, one of which being inner potentials. Supposing that we all depend on physical appearance, for example, skin color, to determine a person’s values. This has inadvertently created a breeding ground for discrimination, and on a macro level, racism towards certain ethnic groups that exist parallelly with our own. A case in point can be seen in America, where black people are frequently being denied a chair in big firms because of their skin color. How can anyone of us, only by looking at two people of two skin colors, tell who is superior? Would the black, whose forebears were being treated like slaves under the ruling of white colonizers for centuries, actually have less chance of success than their brighter skin color counterparts? Unlikely. There are numerous tales that feature famous figures who are black, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, to name but a few. Therefore, judging people’s values based on their skin is by no means fair. Moreover, reality also proves that disabled people can still lead a life that contributes significantly to the well-being of our society, like Nick Vujic-an inspirational speaker and Stephan Hawking- a world famous theoretical physicist did. To sum up, the way a person looks cannot exactly determine who he or she is in this world. In conclusion, it is my conviction that personal core values should be assessed regarding inborn capabilities rather than physical appearance since judgments made based upon the latter may be eclipsed by some shortcomings.