What’s beauty? Well, I guess it all depends on what exactly you’re talking about.
I’ll start off by telling you a very well kept secret…men don’t sit around together and “do nothing but talk” about who we think is beautiful and who we think is not, so much. I had to finally say it out loud! You have no idea how many times I hear, that we men have a one track mind about beauty. When the truth is that most of the “standards for beauty” are set by fashion magazines and certain shows on television. In other words, don’t blame us for thinking that you have to look a certain way or even dress a certain way! Blame the people selling the products. If you have to blame someone.
If you asked 100 different men what makes a person beautiful, you’d probably get just as many answers. You could have a woman who seems to fit the “standard” for being extraordinarilly beautiful, but one minute later she may “dog out” a server for messing up her order, and boom…it doesn’t matter what she looks like on the outside, most guys would never see her in the same way again!! A beautiful inside is just as, if not more important than, a beautiful outside.
Well, why do I say all of this in the first place? There are a lot of people (both men and women), who, for one reason or another think of themselves as unattractive in at least one way or another. This causes them to think badly about themselves. It leads to lowered self-esteem, lowered expectactions. It also bleeds off onto the way others may treat you. It leads to poorer job performance. People with lower self-esteem even take jobs that they may be over qualified for, simply because they don’t think of themselves as worthy of anything better. You can apply these same things to any part of your life. You will see that the way you view yourself is THE most important thing that you could ever do: because it affects every other facet of your life – including your happiness, and all of your future achievements.
I don’t believe that low self-esteem or poor self image is what we were put on earth to live with. In fact I believe exactly the opposite! The proof is all around you. Callie and I were driving along in west Texas many years ago, and I brought the car to a sudden stop. Callie asked what was wrong, and I told her to look out of my window. There was a fallen down two story barn with a small pond beside it, and there were two mesas, just far enough apart to form a gap between their peeks where the sun was setting dead in the middle. A tree on the other side of the pond broke up the orange-red sun just enough to make the most beautiful reflection in the water. It was a shame that we didn’t have our camera right then, because that was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Now, think about what this beautiful site was made of…a broken down barn, a drying up lake, a barren tree, two miss-shapen mesas, and the setting sun, all coming together at the same time. Not too much to work with, but breathtaking all the same.
People are the same way. But we’ve got something even more than that scene. Take a long look in a mirror. Consider what you see. Give credit where credit is due – do you have a pretty nose, nice pores, beautiful skin, soft hair? Look, and you’ll see the good features, because, they are there. Now, look into your eyes. There are many creation stories that say the same things. One thing that a lot of them have in common is that our Creator formed us from a substance from earth, but BLEW life into our mouths. This means that a piece of your Creator was put into your body directly by your Maker. I believe that one act makes each and every one of us so beautiful in so many different ways. If the eyes are the windows to the Soul, look deeply into them, and see your Creator inside of you. No one can tell you, me or anyone else that every person on this earth is not Beautiful, should not have Great self-esteem, deserve the best that life can offer in every way, all of the time.
Think about it. Learn it. Live It! Make your life the best that it can be. You deserve it – your eyes will never lie to you.
Much Love,
Dunc.