Seeing Beauty in the Everyday

We’ve all had moments when we do ourselves the disservice of not promoting or acknowledging our own dignity, self-worth, and beauty. We are easily distracted by the portrayal of reality and use social media as the standard to which we compare ourselves and our experiences. We get caught up in the perception of beauty rather than our pursuit of it.

The ability to see beauty is what makes a person beautiful. Two key elements we forget when measuring or discovering beauty is that there needs to be a relationship and that beauty is an experience. The experience hinges upon connection and a personal response. True beauty can be found anywhere and pulls us out of ourselves and into relationship with reality. So let’s talk about beauty that goes beyond the aesthetics; the kind of beauty that resides within us all, surrounds us, and can uplift us.  

A goal we should all have in the back of our minds, amid the everyday hustle of our schedule and responsibilities, should be to discover beauty, to let it become a part of us, and to emulate it. We can do this in our everyday lives but we must work at ourselves to be receptive to beauty because sometimes it’s very subtle.

Last winter, my team was in the middle of our busiest time of the year and there was a lot of pressure. By the time I headed home, I was the only person left in the office and I didn’t see a soul as I walked home. I was wrapped in my anxieties and felt the mounting sting of tears forming as I moved along the dark and narrow sidewalk. Then something stopped me dead in my tracks and pulled me out of myself. A few feet in front of me, in the middle of a patch of light formed by the hovering streetlamp was a large leaf. All on its own and covered with beads of water from an early evening storm. The leaf wasn’t the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life, but it was lovely. The streetlamp was like a spotlight in the middle of the night that reflected and refracted off the water droplets and made them glow. So I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I forgot about work. I forgot about the cold. And I just looked at this leaf for a minute.

Dr. Margaret Laracy describes beauty as requiring “a certain humility to be drawn out of one’s self, to admit that there is something beyond me that’s worth paying attention to, that I can gain something from.” I realized that beauty does not need to be grand or outdo everything else that’s come before it. This was a delicate moment of discovered beauty in my day. A leaf helped me reorder my priorities and temper my anxieties.

Now, my work stress didn’t disappear but all of the sudden it was within context, which made it manageable. Beauty illuminates our lives and helps us to better see what’s important. I don’t remember the details of my work project but I do have a vivid memory of that silly little leaf. It still reminds me that beauty is ever-present and scattered around like little gifts, waiting for us to discover. It could be in a conversation with a friend. In something you learn in class that excites you – because ideas are nothing without someone like you to spread them. It could be in a song or a laugh you hear while walking on the street. It could be in the smile you receive from your coffee barista or classmate. It could be in your walk to campus, realizing that you are part of the fabric of your institution. It can be found in vulnerability or in a moment of trust. Beauty can take the form of hope. Hope on a grand scale or in a focused moment, and that is more powerful and important than any anxiety.

But it’s not enough to just see beauty. Beauty demands a response from you, whether silent appreciation, gratitude, or action. Beauty is not reserved for any one type of person but is something you can all detect, take hold of, and make a part of yourselves. In order to be able to detect beauty, though, you must be ready and willing to have the courage to look outside of yourselves for it. You must have hope and true conviction in your value and worth. That doesn’t mean never doubting or having a sad thought. But underneath it all, when laid bare, you must know you are worthwhile and wanted. You must believe that the dignity and love inherent in each one of you, draws in and produces beauty.  

Now you don’t have to go out there tomorrow and be beauty warriors (or maybe you should be…). There’s no need to force beauty or strain to achieve it. Beauty is very simple sometimes and you can drown it out with the noise of distractions, anxiety, and self-doubt, but it is there nonetheless. You already have beauty. You have the capacity to detect and receive beauty because you are all inherently beautiful. We all are. I’m encouraging you today to let beauty come out in your movements, your words, your actions, and to influence your desires.