People are drawn to beauty. We may sometimes deny this because we don't want to be shallow, but it is what it is.
When it comes to beautiful women, men look at them and want to be with them, and women want to be one of them. Pretty cool for the beautiful women out there. Not so great for those women who aren't gorgeous.
So what if you're a woman who ain't a beauty? This can have a powerful effect on a woman's psyche. Mind you, the effect doesn't have to be putting a bag over your head or apologizing for your existence. Although many a woman has found herself feeling this way.
But what a waste of humanity and your own uniqueness.
When I started high school I was the tall, skinny, pimply girl with glasses and braces. I stood in the auditorium that first day of school in my kneesocks and pony tails with a crushed spirit.
The girls around me were wearing makeup and heels, with perfect hair and skin. I stood out like a sore thumb, and paradoxically at the same time felt completely and utterly invisible.
I spent the next few years making my own personal adjustment to not having a place in the beautiful female elite. I didn't put much focus on having the latest clothes or hairstyle because I figured none of it looked right on me anyway. I had no self-confidence, and did not really expect people to want to get to know me.
But I had a small group of friends, who were also not-beautiful. We were all a bit different from the norm. Really, though, as I look back, that just made us more interesting because we didn't fit the average standard of beauty.
One of my friends had had a bone condition that made her knees and elbows knobby, and her fingers crooked. She was stooped because there was something not quite right with her back.
But she made a big difference for me. Part of that was just because she was a good friend who liked to spend time hanging out with me. And part of it was because her looks didn't matter to her one iota.
She was one of the most gregarious, alive people I've ever met. She dressed in fantastic clothes, and stepped up to try new things.
She had a wide group of friends. And she was very happy with herself.
I realized that I had let my lack of looks define who I was, and what I did and didn't do. I had let it keep me small and confined.
Nobody else was doing that to me. I had been doing it to myself.
Once I saw this, I began to make a point of changing myself. Didn't change my looks. But it opened up my expectations of what I could do with my life.
And that, my friend, was beautiful.
Visit Jody's website and blog at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger