Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder?
“Beauty is the in the eye of the beholder.” We’ve all heard this before, but what does it mean?
It means that true beauty is subjective or in how you feel about someone or something. This of course competes with the industries that consistently try to tell us what is beautiful and what isn’t.
The whole fashion industry is based on this effort. They try to tell you what to wear and how to act and are very adamant in making sure you understand the consequences of not being up to date.
As a result, you and I go out and try to buy the latest and most up to date everything, keeping these industries up to their ears in money. So we could alter the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and make it “beauty is in the opinion of the fashion industry.”
The problem with all of this is, too many people accept this notion that the beauty of a person is based on what he or she is wearing or how they are acting. Basically by external appearance. They’ve bought into the belief that beauty is not only not subjective but external as well.
This little mistake can be very costly when we’re dealing with a person’s love life. For example, if you are interested in someone only because they are physically beautiful, you are missing out on the true beauty which is the uniqueness of the individual person.
You just might miss the boat when it comes to real love. For one thing, external beauty fades because people get older. If your attraction to someone is just based on their appearance, you’re in for a tough time when that quality starts to recede with age.
Each person’s “essential beauty” is in the essence of who they are that is not worn or acted, but naturally present and intensified if allowed to emerge. If you are in love with someone, truly in love with him or her, you are in the privileged position of being able to behold their true beauty. You see, hear, and feel their uniqueness no matter what condition their appearance is in.
In my experience, the current problem with this realization is that too many people are not aware of their own unique beauty and as a result have difficulty “beholding” the unique beauty of anyone else. You see, once you’ve become aware of your own uniqueness and learn to value it, you are in the position to sense the uniqueness of others and value theirs, especially people you are in love with.
The next step is to encourage everyone to become aware of their own true beauty in whatever way we can. I’d like to believe we are slowly but surly inching our way in that direction. It doesn’t matter who you are, there is only one of you in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE! There will never be another. Think about that.
Our mutually accepted definition of value involves the concept of “one of a kind.” If something is so rare as to be one of a kind, it automatically increases in value. Every single person is one of a kind, even if you are a twin, it doesn’t matter, you are still on a microscopic level where it counts, one of a kind. Only one person can occupy the space you take up, and that person is you.
When you are in love with a person who is in love with you, your uniqueness as an individual will be in the eye of that person who can behold the essence of you and vice versa. Beautiful.
Comments? Welcome. Dr. Tom Jordan
