What is beauty?

I’m not wearing any makeup. It’s a perk of my new job. I also run errands, soaking up the glorious freedom of self-employment, with my hair un-did and in yoga pants. But that doesn’t make me any less beautiful. (gasp) Anyone else feeling awkward that I just called myself beautiful?

It’s a hard thing to say, and a hard thing to hear, for most women. Yet we all seek after it, whether through our femininity, our art, our smarts, our nurturing or even our strength. We hope a man will see our beauty. Or a boss, or a parent, or another woman. We hope that we’ll see it ourselves.

But before we really understand beauty, we find ways to earn it. It seems that I love burdening myself with unattainable and indiscernible goals, creating a checklist on how to get there, and then I beat myself up when I fall short. Can you relate?

The work looks different for everyone. Some of us highlight our hair, eat celery instead of chips, laugh a little louder, laugh a little quieter, work harder, buy higher heels, go au natural, cake on the mascara, stop shaving our pits, start drinking more, wear slutty clothes, do slutty things, call other women “sluts,” compare our thighs to our friends’, lunge it out until our legs are jello …

But none of that gets us closer to beautiful. If beauty were woven into our being from the beginning, like I believe it was, we can’t do anything to diminish or grow that, because it points to our Maker, not ourselves. That gives us freedom to enjoy the spa, dress for our body type or follow a beauty regime without the burden of attaining a certain definition of beauty.

Beauty a la Esther might seem excessive to some — twelve months of beauty treatments, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics — but I can think of a few gals who would spring for a Groupon that offered that.

The other end of the spectrum finds girls camping out with greentheo, who has set forth the challenge to defy cultural norms and boycott traditional deodorant and showering techniques.

I think we’re spot on if we can call ourselves beautiful and know it’s not because of our beauty regime, self-discipline or Jimmy Choos. Beauty can reek of myrrh or carry a stench of BO — or anything in between.