Have you ever looked in the mirror to just see your face?  You aren’t looking at some pimple forming or for any gray hair starting to sprout.  No, you are taking a moment to assess yourself.  Beauty after all, is in the eye of the beholder.  What is it that you really see?  Are you capable of looking with open eyes and ready to face the facts or do you foolishly wear rose-colored glasses and admire what you perceive to be true?

Nowadays people tend to be beauty conscious and society has erected a scale by which we measure our beauty or lack thereof.  It is time to put aside silly notions of how we should look and take the time to appreciate what we actually look like and embrace that.

True beauty is not found in a bottle.  It is found within and shines outward.  We are becoming too obsessed with being beautiful on the outside and never looking past that exterior appearance.  We color our hair to find a color that complements us.  We refuse to accept what was given to us at birth.  We add makeup to bring out features in hopes of instilling confidence within ourselves and in hope of appearing more aesthetically pleasing to others.  We begin to define ourselves and our worth by our appearance, our clothes, and our accessories and vow to maintain the look we worked so hard to create.

Society has put a perfect ideal into our heads and we willingly do whatever it takes to achieve that ideal.  We sell ourselves short in the process.  It is no longer beauty, but rather an ugly side of ourselves that comes out.  We now tend to measure people by their physical looks and write off those who fall short. Hollywood seeks out the beautiful people, but discards them when they start to show signs of aging and fail to look like the beauty they once were.  Women take issue with this and seek to find ways to become or appear more beautiful as they age.  They cannot let go of younger years and will pay whatever the cost is to look like they once did.

What message are we sending out?  Do we want our kids to be based on an appearance or on their character?  Do we want to have the best that money buys in order to look the part or do we want our kids to be able to look in the mirror and like what they see?

I would rather be a face that stands out rather than one that is a dime a dozen.  I want to celebrate who I am, not who I need to become in order to be accepted by the masses.  I want to be liked for myself and not for some fantasy that sells out to the masses and plays out for the public.

I picked up the mirror and took a long hard look at myself.  I am a very critical person when it comes to me.  I can spot any flaws faster than one could quickly point out to me.  When I was younger I used to be concerned with what others thought about me.  I had an older sister who was very pretty and she knew it.  She was constantly told how pretty she was and by the number of guys lining up to ask her out, she could easily deduce it was based on her looks.  I do not begrudge her beauty.  However, they sold her short in the process.  They focused only on her beauty and not on who she was underneath.  That was very sad.  It was as if people did not care who she was, they just cared how she looked.  At first, I was very insecure because of all of this.  I am far from ugly, but when you are around someone beautiful it can shake you if you are not comfortable with yourself first.

Years went by and I relied on ways to look better thinking approval would come with this process.  I was so wrong.  My looks did get me noticed but they did not define who I was.  I wanted to see past my eyes and the rest of my face.  I wanted to see who this person was behind the face.

I studied myself for years, not out of conceit, but rather out of curiosity.  I wanted to see what caused the laughter, the inquisitiveness, my caring and concern for others.  I wanted to know what shaped me and how it shaped me.

I searched and searched and each time I found another piece to the puzzle.  I started to assemble all of the pieces until my portrait was finished.  It was here I saw who I really was.  I saw the definition and the purpose of every feature.  I saw the beauty from within come out and display itself on the outside canvas.  That was my true self and from that came my true beauty.  Time could not wear it out, nor could any desperate means repair it.  It was what it was and I was more than satisfied with the answer.

I love every wrinkle and crease on my face because I earned all of it.  I lived my life well and it shows on my face.  One can see the contentment and read the map of where I have been thus far.  I proudly display my gray hair and I have been blessed not to have too many wrinkles as of yet.  However, I do not want to change a thing.  This face is real and it does not need any improvement.  I fear for those who need to make constant improvements.  How will they ever recognize who they are if all they do is changing what they have?  I do not need to look like I am twenty again in order for someone else to be pleased with me.  I need to be who I am in order to please myself.  All of those lessons, choices made, defined me and got me to where I am today.  I cannot subtract that in order to fit in with society.  I want to be comfortable in my own skin regardless of what others think.

Choose for yourself.  Do you want to live by someone else’s idea of what looks good or do you want to live by your definition of beauty?  Celebrate who you are, relish your differences, applaud your decision to be yourself, and respect who you are by loving all of you: flaws and all.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Let it be your eyes in which it dwells.