Physical "imperfections"

  

I had a brief encounter earlier today with a man I'd never met before. As we greeted each other, he gazed at the top of my head and said, "You've done a good job of hanging on to all that." I noticed then that he had a pretty significantly receded hairline. I chuckled and said, "Well, I had about as much to do about that as you did with yours." We commented on the joys of aging and other physical processes in our lives.

There are a few aspects of our physical appearance that we do control, but a whole lot that we don't. Another personal example - due to genetics or fate or luck, I was born with large ears. I was the victim of some pretty severe teasing in elementary school (and even through high school) about them - "Hey Dumbo, if you learned to wiggle those ears, I'll bet you could fly!" My tender young ego had a hard time with this. At one point my mother, bless her heart, actually took me to a plastic surgeon to see if adjustments could be made - I'm grateful now that either she couldn't afford it or else I was to scared to try it. She used to tell me that large ears, especially large lobes, were a sign of wisdom - just look at Buddha she would say, or LBJ or any one of several Church leaders of the era!

And then there's my German nose! I used to be self-conscious of it, but now I'm just proud of the heritage it represents. It goes on and on. Probably most of us have some part of our physical appearance beyond our control that at one time or another has displeased us.

We live in a very appearance-aware world. Among other influences, the advertising industry has effectively emphasized traditional "standards of beauty" for both men and women - body size and shape, weight and height, facial features, hair color, and so on - in ways that subtly manipulate our own thinking.

Being neat and clean, and caring for our bodies to the extent we can, is important. But it's a wise and mature person who is able to look at others and ignore physical features over which a person has no control, but instead see aspects of personality, intellect, or other achievements over which a person has great control. Truly, as the old adage reminds us, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - and we each can control what that eye "sees" (and what the mind does with it) as we interact with one another.

I #GiveThanks for the gift of my physical body, imperfect though it may be by someone's standards. It suits me just fine, and it's not just the hair that has held up pretty well through the years. And I'm grateful to have learned to appreciate more important things in the people I am privileged to encounter in life.