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Comic Phyllis Diller quipped that she once entered a beauty contest. "I not only came in last," she said, "I was hit in the mouth by Miss Congeniality."
Little Matthew watched, fascinated, as his mother, smoothed white cream on her face.
"Why do you do that, Mom?”, he asked.
"To make myself beautiful," she smiled. She then began to remove the cream with a tissue.
"What's the matter?" the little boy asked. "Giving up?"
What Matthew didn’t understand is that the cream has little to do with making his mother beautiful. Lasting beauty can’t be found in a squeeze bottle or cosmetics drawer.
Have you heard of Ed Feinhandler? Ed has proved many times that he is the world's ugliest man. But others disagree because, the fact is, Ed has discovered a universal "beauty secret."
Ed has won at least 15 Ugly Man competitions. According to the Daily Sparks Tribune (Sparks, Nevada USA), he drives a minivan with "Mr. Ugly" personalized license plates. Good looks were never important to him. But helping people always has been, and the thousands of dollars he has raised over the years from Ugly Man competitions he has donated to charity. In his spare time, Ed coaches youth sports, teaches tennis to underprivileged children and delivers Christmas baskets to the elderly. There’s nothing ugly about the way he lives his life.
To know Ed is to know a beautiful man whose real attractiveness comes from within. His secret is this: beauty has little to do with physical looks -- it resides in the heart.
You, too, probably know some exquisitely beautiful people. I mean beautiful on the inside. They are kind and generous. They are happy and contented. You enjoy being around them. They may not necessarily look like much, but others see them as beautiful human beings.
When beauty lives in the heart, it doesn’t need to show up anywhere else.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: flickr.com/Mike Mozart
