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Making the choice to be truly beautiful 1 Extreme makeovers are all the rage these days with too many people addicted to Botox injection parties and reality shows. Plastic surgery is on the rise. Many people are trying to match the extraordinary measures actors and actresses go through to look perfect on the screen. Yet the shortcuts to create biomedical happiness by having surgery taking supplements or dieting don't usually fulfill their promise. Besides beautiful people are not automatically happy people. 2 Attaining the highest degree of your beauty is not about looking good during social interaction or physiological perfection and you can't get there via technology. It's a growth process a transformation of self through awareness and learning. It's about meaning and being real. It's an emotional and spiritual walk and it requires faith fueled with liberal doses of loving kindness. 3 Every day I have the delight and privilege of loving Richard my husband a real human emotionally accessible man. We're about the same age and our looks have corroded a bit over time. After almost 20 years though we have grown together in ways that go far deeper than the surface of our skin. Our life is lovely even if it doesn't match the criterion of love in movie fantasies. We laugh together we share the struggles of daily life together and the thought that he might die before I do fills me with dread. All the muscle-bound male models in the world couldn't replace my very own sensual outgoing friend. It took me 37 years to find him and I'm not about to replace him with the so-called "esthetic perfection". 4 I work as a psychotherapist and clients come to my office every day scarred with emotional pain because their lives aren't "perfect" enough. They feel inadequate hopeless and frustrated with jealousy because they can't attain life as they see it on the big screen. It helps when I preface our sessions with the mention that tens of thousands of dollars go into every second of media they see that stars have dozens of people devoted exclusively to making them look good (even when they're naked) that the effort of maintaining their images is an exhausting full-time job. The "beautiful" people in the media are under enormous pressure to maintain their looks and for some reason my clients don't realize that they're exempt from that predominant pressure. 5 I underscore that all the face creams physical workouts dietary fads Prozac capsules and meditation regiments in the world aren't going to make their lives their bodies or their mental state much better. In fact they often hamper happiness by distracting from the things that lead to real inner beauty. Life is not about maintaining some young and stylish outward costume to hide behind. It's about growing and deepening your soul. 6 The only way I know to develop my soul is through feelings. Witnessing natural phenomena the star-lit galaxy a centuries-old redwood the symphony of birds' songs in spring stretches it making me feel humble and majestic all at the same time. Human relationships bruise collide and comfort teaching me maturity and passion. Love urges my soul to blossom and glow affection elicits feelings of eternity and so I learn to accept others as they are. 7 The humans in my life are not the barren self-absorbed "beautiful people" of the screen. We're ordinary real imperfect people. Together we work hard stumbling through life trying to be our best selves knitting together families and friendships and striving to illuminate the world with our personal ethics and aspirations. 8 We come from numerous backgrounds and we don't always approve of each other's decisions but we care for each other the best we can. We struggle to be less self-indulgent more compassionate and understanding. We try to resist the lure of novelty fads the manipulations of advertising. We survive through social phenomena that we don't agree with through interwoven natural and unnatural disasters that take our loved ones and possessions through fads and fancies that are often unhealthy. From each event we learn we stretch we sometimes fracture we process the emotional outcome and we move on. These life events are the soul's workout and though we may groan and complain we can feel the growth eventually. 9 The secret is that this growth is visible to others and the effort registers on one's entire being. It becomes an authentic element that makes the spirit glow radiantly like that of a saint. Have you ever seen an elderly person like that one whose wisdom shows in his eyes and whose love is evident as he gently enquires about your health or offers a brief sentiment that calms and affirms? The spirit that shines from within this person is true beauty and it can't be bought in a jar. 10 The miracle is that each of us has the total capacity to achieve this perspective this fullest embodiment of the highest expression of soul even as our mortal bodies wear out and degenerate. 11 In other words true beauty is not about looks. It's about choices. As we move through life and grow through each of its checkpoints we should seek out and build the kinds of experiences that reveal and purify our divine inner beauty. We must look at our own lives and decisions from a more valuable perspective than the media's shallow eye. 12 The decisions we make today affect the rest of our lives. We ourselves are ultimately the only people to whom we are accountable and for whom we are responsible. Each new decision we make can be a new resolution to build the beautiful future we long to have. 选择拥有真正的美丽 当今，过度追求相貌修整的风气无比盛行，太多的人沉迷于肉毒杆菌注射的宣讲会和真人秀，整容手术也日趋流行。许多人的做法堪比男女演员为了使自己在屏幕上看起来完美无瑕而采取的手段。为了获得生物医学标准下的幸福感，人们会走做整容手术、吃营养品、节食这样的捷径，但这些捷径并不总能实现它们所承诺的效果。而且，外表漂亮的人并不一定就幸福。 最大限度地实现你自己的美并不是指要让自己在社交时漂亮或在生理上完美，况且这些也不是通过技术就能实现的。美是一个成长的过程，是一种通过意识和学习而达到的自我改造。美在于生活的意义，在于真实。它是一个情感和精神的旅程，需要人有信念才能获得，而且这种信念的动力来自慷慨和充满爱心的善良。 能有幸每天爱着理查德，我感到很高兴。他是我丈夫，一个真实的、有人情味的、情感上可以靠近的人。我们年龄相仿，相貌已在岁月中有所消退。但近二十年来，我们共同成长，远超肌肤之表。尽管我们的生活不如虚幻的电影故事中描述的爱情生活那样，它却很美好。我们一起欢笑，一起分担日常生活的磕磕绊绊。如果想到他有可能先于我离世，我会充满恐惧。世界上任何一位肌肉发达的男模都不能取代我自己的这位性感、外向的伴侣。我花了37年时间才找到他，我决不会因为所谓的“审美标准上的完美”而另寻他人。 我是一名心理理疗师。每天我都要接待许多客户，他们都是因为生活不够“完美”而倍受情感痛苦。由于无法获得大屏幕上所看到的那种生活，他们感到力不从心、绝望无助，并因嫉妒而陷于沮丧。给他们提供治疗时，如果在治疗开始前，我告诉他们，他们在媒体上所看到的每秒钟的图像都耗资数万，每个明星都有几十个人专门为其打理形象，使其外表悦目（甚至是裸体时也是如此），而且明星们保持形象是一件既费力又费时的事，这会对他们的治疗有所帮助。媒体上的俊男俏女们承受着保持形象的巨大压力，而我的客户却因某种原因，没有意识到他们有幸免受了这种强大的压力。 我要强调的是，世界上所有的面霜、健身锻炼、饮食风尚、抗抑郁症的百忧解胶囊，乃至许多人在一起打坐冥思等等，都不能改善一个人的生活、身体或精神状况。事实上，这些方法还常常阻碍人们获得幸福，因为它们会使人分心，不去关注那些能带来真正内在美的事物。生活的意义不在于通过维持某种年轻时髦的外表来掩盖自己，而在于精神的成长和升华。 我所知道的唯一的精神升华的途径就是通过情感。亲眼目睹各种自然现象——星光闪烁的银河，几百年树龄的红杉木，春天里鸟儿的叫声汇成的交响乐——这些都使我的精神得以延伸，让我觉得自己既卑微又伟大。人际关系中的摩擦、冲突和安慰使我变得成熟并充满激情。爱情促使我的精神成长并焕发光彩，亲情激发了我对永恒的感受，因此我学会了接受他人的真实本色。 我生活中的人都不是屏幕上那种思想平庸、迷恋自我的“美貌人士”。我们只是平凡的、实实在在的、有缺点的人。我们一起勤奋努力，患难与共，尽力完善自我，和家人及朋友紧密相处，努力用我们的个人道德和志向去照亮世界。 我们来自各种不同的背景，而且有时意见相左，但是我们尽力互相关心。我们努力消除自己的任性，努力使自己更具同情心、更宽容。我们努力抗拒新奇事物的潮流的诱惑及广告的操纵。我们会经历自己并不赞同的社会现象，经历那些夺走我们所挚爱的人和财物的错综交织的自然及人为灾难， 经历不良的时尚和幻想。但从每一例这样的事件中，我们都不断地学习、成长。我们有时也会发生分歧，也要处理分歧对感情所带来的影响，然后继续前行。这些人生经历是对我们心灵的历练。虽然我们会抱怨、发牢骚，我们终会感受到自己的成长。 这其中的秘密就在于这种成长是他人可见的，而且这种努力在一个人的全身上下都能得到展现。它成了一种真实的存在，使一个人的精神像圣人那样光彩四溢。你是否见过这样一位老者，他眼睛里透射着智慧，当他温柔地询问你的健康，或以简短的抚慰让你感到平静和放心时，他对你的关爱是那样显露无遗？这样的老者内心所散发出的精神才是真正的美，这种美不是瓶瓶罐罐的化妆品所能买得到的。 神奇的是，尽管我们的肉体会老去并且衰退，我们每个人都完全有能力达到这个境界，即最大程度地展现最崇高的精神内涵。 换句话说，真正的美丽无关外貌，而在于选择。在人生的旅途中，每当我们经过一个节点，都应该寻找那些能够展示和净化我们神圣的内在美的人生体验，并且将它们积累下来。我们必须从一个更有价值的角度而非以媒体肤浅的眼光来看待自己的人生和决定。 我们今天所作的决定会影响我们的余生。归根到底，我们自己才是唯一要对自己负责的人。我们所做的每一个新决定都可能表明了一个新决心，一个创造我们所渴望拥有的美好未来的决心。 |
