“Pretty” is boring. My friend Angi has always told me this, and its truth rang loudly yesterday. Angi is a firm believer in the beauty of people in movement, in motion, and in expression. I always just thought it was Angi’s cop-out for not being photogenic, but she hit on something deeper than I could have possibly realized, and that is that true beauty only really exists deep inside.
I have a management role in a large fitness facility, which means that I am oftentimes the target of angry consumers or disgruntled clients. Yesterday, an unhappy client badgered me. Refusing to engage in eye contact, she scolded me, belittled me and dehumanized me all at one time. I later learned that she had pre-judged me for thinking I was an ignorant blonde 19 year-old (and not my ripe old age of 27) and that she lived her life in a constant state of complaining dissatisfaction. She had been a popular cheerleader in high school, some twenty some years prior, and, according to those who know her, still holds onto those days where her identity and self-worth lied in being socially accepted as “pretty.” She is the quintessential mean girl that has become a mean woman. Mean girls become mean women because they have relied their entire lives on being “pretty”, and as life catches up to them, they have never taken the time to develop their own inside.
You always get what you ask for. I have been asking to improve my people skills, for I believe that that is a skill that always needs honing and improvement, and boy did I get what I asked for. There is still hope for the mean girls and mean women in the world however, and that hope starts with the others around them, people like you and me, encouraging them to start seeing life through a different set of eyes. What stands out most about my own mean woman experience is that more than anything, that woman needs love. It is through patience, understanding and empathy that we can slowly transform the world and people around us, even if they are mean hearted or intolerant. The buck starts with ourselves, and you may be surprised at how people will change as you give them nothing but love in return.