Our looks reflect the sum total of who we are and how we live, and the best we can do in life is to make the best of what nature has given is, without excuse, apology, or pretense.
If we try to live otherwise, we find ourselves acting on a stage with other actors and actresses--great pretenders without real friends, without real lovers, without real relationships. While we realize that there is such a thing as "natural beauty," which is beyond all standards of culture and history in some sense, there are also "relative" standards of beauty.
We all know about fads, styles, and adornments that are "in" one season and "out" the next. This includes cosmetics, hair styles, clothing, and even body weight and size.
These standards may vary from country to country, year to year, or even
among different age groups in the same country and year. For example,
full figures are considered the ideal in some historical periods, but slender figures are valued now--at least in Western countries.
The point is that cultural standards change--and we may choose to follow or ignore them--because the cultivation of natural beauty is not dependent upon fads.
In order to get along harmoniously, whether at the level of dating,
courtship, or marriage, men and women have to get past physical looks
and into the more important qualities that make up human relationships,
such as kindness, friendship, and areas of mutual interest.
There is such a thing as a beautiful personality. There can be beauty
in the way a person thinks. An attitude or smile can be beautiful. Love is certainly beautiful, and all of life is beautiful when we are in love.
A person is truly beautiful when he or she is healthy. Any disease or illness affects all parts of the body, sometimes for many years before the symptoms are manifested. If the body and mind are not healthy, then a person cannot feel or be truly attractive.
Good health brings a glow to the skin, a ring to the voice, a twinkle
to the eye, and a spring to the step that no beauty school can teach.
