Get More Beautiful with Age

It’s a threat every teenager hears ad nauseam:

“You’d better enjoy how you look, because it’s not going to last.”

Cosmetic legend Elizabeth Arden warned: “Hold fast to youth and beauty.” Beauty fades. You’ll never look better than you do right now.

Except some people look a whole LOT better the older they get.

Shouldn’t you be one of them?

I have a theory. You know the most attractive girls back in high school? The popular ones?

If you go to your 20-year class reunion and look around, you might be surprised to find their youthful beauty didn’t necessarily translate into mature beauty.

Attractive girls don’t always grow up to be attractive women.

But there will always be one unexpected stunner at the reunion. Chances are, she’ll be one of the girls you never even noticed at school. Gone are the mousy hair, the flat chest, and the braces. This gorgeous gal bears no trace of the homely girl she once was.

What happened?

Why does what you looked like as a teen not predict your looks as an adult?

I believe it comes down to what we believe about beauty.

If we believe that beauty is a gift given by nature, then we accept our decline with good humor.

But if we believe that beauty is a practice—a way of being that requires discipline and commitment—then we get better and better with each passing year.

There’s nowhere this distinction is more evident than in Hollywood.

Women who make a living from their looks never seem to age. They become more and more beautiful into their 30s and 40s, while normal folk merely end up … sagging.

Sure, you might dismiss it as luck of the genetic draw or the plastic surgeon’s scalpel, but there’s more to it than that.

It comes down to the same reason that mousy girl from high school grew up to be a stunner.

Gorgeous women everywhere have one very simple belief that ensures they’ll age with grace.

They believe that beauty is so much more than an attractive set of features.

Beauty is a state of mind. It’s a way of being in the world.

Now, this isn’t your mother’s old saw.

It doesn’t mean that, if you’re a nice person, you’re going to be beautiful.

Being good and virtuous only wins you an alabaster complexion and rich mane of hair in the wonderful world of Disney.

This is a more modern truth:

You become what you think about.

If you’re in the public eye, where your income depends on your looks, then you think a LOT about beauty.

If you’re getting papped each time you walk out the front door, then beauty is going to be on your mind constantly.

It’s non-negotiable. You cannot afford to let your appearance lapse, lest you lose work and/or credibility.

This applies to models, actresses, and almost every woman who stands on a stage. Part of being in the public eye, for better or for worse, is caring about your looks.

For the rest of us, beauty is something we really only think about when we’re in front of a mirror or getting ready for work in the mornings. We’ve got other things to occupy our attention.

Beauty isn’t on our minds when we choose what we’re having for lunch. Beauty isn’t on our minds when we nip by Starbucks for a pick-me-up. Beauty isn’t in the picture when we kick back and relax in front of the television.

We’d all love to be more gorgeous, sure, but we’ve got other priorities. Like friends and fun, for starters.

And that’s why we don’t age like celebrities.

Beauty isn’t a massive priority. We don’t live or die based on how we look. We can gain a few pounds or make some fashion mistakes, and no one is going to hang us out to dry over it.

But we have the same choice everyone else does.

The choice to live beauty in everything we do.

We can decide to move beautifully. Talk beautifully. Eat beautifully. Smile beautifully.

Beautiful women incorporate beauty into everything. In what they put in their mouths. In the ease of their movements. In the way they laugh.

What would happen if you decided to do everything as beautifully as possible?

Something might start to shift.

You might start to relate to your body in a different way. To your food in a different way. To the people around you in a different way.

You might start to become what you believe about yourself.

It’s every plain girl’s dream: the day when she will become beautiful because of her commitment to being beautiful. A commitment the prettier girls never had to make.

There’s a wonderful Navajo prayer that describes this way of living.

I first came across this prayer many years ago, when I was volunteering on a reservation. It moved me deeply then, and it still inspires me today. May it inspire you to walk the path of beauty.

“In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me I walk.
With beauty behind me I walk.
With beauty above me I walk.
With beauty around me I walk.
It has become beauty again.
It has become beauty again.
It has become beauty again.
It has become beauty again.