“I wish I was beautiful,” she sighed, envious eyes landing on the graceful, willowy girl before her. “…like her.”
“Why be beautiful like her,” he asked quizzically “when you can be beautiful like you?”
A short, strangled cry of frustration left her lips.
“But— Agh! She —beautiful is her. Not me. I am not…I am not beautiful in the way I need to be. To be beautiful… I need to be like her.”
“Tell me,” he said thoughtfully. “Do you like the stars?”
“…Y-yes.”
“And the ocean, do you like it?”
“Well, yes.”
“How about the dawn?”
“Of —of course.”
“They are all beautiful, are they not?” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
“And yet, the stars do not need to look like the ocean in order to be beautiful. None of them have to look like each other. They need only be themselves, and they are beautiful — do you get my point?” he smiled kindly.
Stunned, she could only nod uncertainly.
“Beauty,” he concluded,”is a personal experience. You need only think something is beautiful, and it is.”
Young Adult, Old Soul 