These days, pretty girls are a dime a dozen. And I do hate to cheapen the lengths us ladies go to to make ourselves feel gorgeous. But in the city of Los Angeles; the mecca of media, head turning humans are everywhere you look. Our culture makes it easy to fill our emotional voids with tools, techniques, items to spend money on, efforts to focus our energy and time toward, to make us feel more physically attractive. So much of our short lives are poured into perfecting our aging, imperfect human exteriors.
Whether basking in the gift of glorious genetics, or priding oneself in the talents of creating visual alchemy with our looks...to be considered physically beautiful is truly a luxury. To be born with or to create good looks is not so much an achievement as it is a stroke of luck and effort. While it is human nature to strive for physical attractiveness, it is imperative in a life of true substance to strive much greater lengths toward inward beauty. A select few philosophies about inward beauty arose this afternoon in my brief musings on the matter:
Focus on the internal...your values, your empathy and compassion, your discipline and your creative callings, the efforts and actions in life that truly fulfill you. The ways you lovingly touch the world when you unearth your light within by accepting, forgiving and nurturing yourself and others...this is the beauty that matters more than anything else. True beauty is the undeniable confidence and self awareness that comes from the relentless work you've done to heal and better yourself, the steps you've consciously taken out of your darkness and your past. True beauty is encouraging that same potential in others and helping to guide them down that path once you've found the comforts of your own enlightened direction. True beauty is the ability to be accepting of the imperfections of your existence and to pause long enough and frequently in curiosity to admire the tiny details of nature and life that surround us every day. Beauty is to understand that pain and sorrow is an opportunity for developing strength, wisdom and the possibility of becoming brighter light for those around us. Beauty is to not overlook the miracle of our impossible existence in this endless cosmos.
Yours truly,
AU