"A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful." --Jacqueline Bisset
It's easy to feel beautiful when you go on a shopping spree and treat yourself, or when you get a mani-pedi (or do anything at a spa). It's easy to feel beautiful when you get all dolled up and go out for a night with the girls, your honey, your co-workers. But it's hard to feel beautiful when you're faced with adversity. You open up a credit card and die when you see the balance due...it's hard to feel beautiful then. Likewise, it's hard to feel beautiful when you have to scrape your toddler's poo off the wall from where they smeared it. And it's also hard to feel beautiful when you have a snarling, cranky boss (or snarling, cranky co-workers) to dealt with every day. But it's entirely possible to experience beauty under fire.
You've no doubt heard of grace under fire. There's beauty under fire, too. Ms. Bisset is right: courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can make you quite a beautiful person. Beauty is a general concept, to be sure, it doesn't have a single set of physical or intellectual standards. So, you're beautiful when you have the courage to stand down a bad situation and do the right thing, like breaking up with a boyfriend who cheats on you. Only a beautiful, strong, courageous woman does right by herself and has the strength to stand up for herself...and breaking up with a bad guy is something every woman has the ability to do. So every woman can be beautiful.
Every woman dig down deep and find the discipline to deal with a gigundo credit card balance. It takes courage just to look at the thing, and THEN discipline to make the monthly payments, no matter what. It takes even MORE discipline to sacrifice creature comforts (more shopping, the Grande drink from Starbucks, dinners out, that Friday bar night with the girls) until the principle is paid down, too. (Because as everyone knows, credit card minimum balances are mostly interest, NOT a lot of principle). But it somehow feels beautiful to stare down that credit card balance and eventually destroy it.
It takes fortitude to deal with a toddler who is too raw of a human being to completely grasp the refinement necessary to NOT swirl poo on the wall, or decorate it with crayons, or chase the cat around with scissors, or be quiet in public when others are dining in a restaurant. But you know what? You've got what it takes. You've handled it before, and you'll dig down deeper and handle it again. And why can't you feel beautiful in the process? It takes quite a lady to deal with everything a toddler has to dish out. You're a fantastic woman AND an awesome mom. And someday, trust me, you'll look back at this phase and laugh.
It takes a combination of courage, discipline, fortitude AND integrity to deal with nasty bosses or co-workers. You have to have courage just to go in there and face it down every day until you (A) have an exit plan to leave to go someplace better for you or (B) get that promotion and end up in another department, location, whatever. You have to have discipline to sit yourself down on time every day, and to push yourself minute by minute, hour by hour, task by task, until the day's over and you get to go home. (Free at last!) It takes fortitude to have that graceful strength to face whatever the co-workers dish out at you.
And, finally, it takes integrity not to stoop to their level, crush under the weight of their nonsense, and be the better, bigger person. And you are that better, bigger person. And you know what? That's more beautiful than a supermodel on a runway. Want to know why? To me, it's not about the skin-deep stuff of who has that blemish-less face, or the best makeup, or the fashionista wardrobe, etc. You can have a woman who has all of those outer trappings about her, and she's ugly as sin on the inside. She's weak from alcohol, drugs, eating disorders...she's nasty, she's entitled, she's dull and droll. (Now, now, I'm not saying ALL supermodels are like this...but you know some are if you read the magazines, even if it's just on line at the supermarket).
The bottom line is, beauty under fire is the best kind of beauty there is. It's not something that can be achieved by slathering on the latest shade of lipstick. It's achieved by courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity...something that's available to all of us, without a purchase price. And when we try those aspects of ourselves on for size, we always look and feel our best.
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