Ride the Bull

Learn to love yourself: be yourself and have fun!
// By Ellen DeGeneres

Do you care a lot about what others think of you? Do you have enough fun? Do you love yourself enough and stand by yourself? If not: please read on.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. External beauty is superficial. Beauty has nothing to do with our appearance, it comes from the light in our heart. These sentences have been my credo throughout my life. I firmly believed that true beauty has nothing to do with hair or eye color. True beauty expresses what kind of person you are, what you believe in. True beauty is like an ethical compass.

In 2008 I finally got the opportunity to banish this scrub from my brain, because I was booked as a new face for CoverGirl, the well-known cosmetics brand! Ha, look at someone! My noble cheekbones! I am a beauty queen! (At this point the spotlight comes on and I slowly turn my head from right to left like a real supermodel. Of course it was "too expensive" and "simply not feasible" to install a few mini spotlights in every book sorry, dear reader, but here you have to let your imagination play.) In truth, I still believe that inner beauty is more important than outer, that a big heart, an open mind and a good mood are crucial. (However, the inner life of most people is anything but beautiful. Even beautiful people can have an ugly inside.

Away with perfection: Too much research does nothing

Speaking of the inside: When I sat down to write for the first time, I stared at the blank page and came up with a strategy to make it easier for me to get started. If I want to get a talk show guest to tell a good story, I just ask him a question. So, for a change, I addressed myself and asked myself one of those typical questions that I usually ask my talk guests: "When did you fall in love with the country singer Tim McGraw?" But I couldn't get any further. I quickly realized that there was little point in asking myself about things that only Tim's wife Faith Hill could provide information about. So I came up with a new question. "Why did you take on the role in Precious - Life is precious?" But that only works if you are called Gabourey Sidibe.

It is quite the same with beauty: Do you know these surgery shows in which people suck off fat or have pads sewn into their breasts? Nice is something else.) For me, beauty has a lot to do with whether you feel good in your skin. So whether you can accept yourself as you are and be satisfied with yourself. I am happy with myself. I don't live lies. And I think that's why I became CoverGirl's first fifty-year-old, self-confessed lesbian cover girl. The fact that I have fantastic blue eyes was, I think, a minor matter.

Ideals of beauty and society: Throw away your mirror

But our society is incredibly fixated on the outside. I recently noticed that again when I looked into one of those mirrors that enlarge the face five hundred times. You can find them in every well-stocked furniture store in the "Useful accessories that are guaranteed to spoil your mood" department. Incidentally, right next to the bathroom scales. I am sure you know such mirrors from your own experience. On the one hand a normal mirror, then you turn the thing so that the back swings forward, and tata: your face looks like a crater landscape on the moon.

Portia and I have one of those Spiegel with us in the shower. I usually don't look in there because the person who lathers me is always standing in front of it. But for some reason I did it once, and dear God in heaven, that's a horrible invention! Who came up with something like that and why isn't he in jail? These things should have a warning label. As with the returnspiegeln on the car. We also have it on it: "Objects are closer than it seems." You would have to do something similar on enlargementspiegel write: »Objects are more attractive than it seems.« These things show you things that you didn't even know you had - and that you can't even see without. I looked at my hairline and found that a flock of pigeons had built their nests in it. I was shocked. The only people who need to see certain things this big are surgeons who perform delicate operations and watchmakers. End, end, end! You will never appear in the eye of the beholder as you do in them Spiegeln appear unless you were married to a surgeon or watchmaker and your significant other came home in the evening and forgot to take off his forehead loupe. "Honey, I'm back home! Oh my god, your pores are huge! "

Perfectionism: Don't ride around on your flaws

I really don't know a single reasonable reason why you should look into such things. They pull every tiny flaw to light. Who needs that? After all, there is our mother for that. The (maybe not so crisp) sticking point is: Nobody is perfect except Penélope Cruz. It is our shortcomings that make us human. If we can accept them as part of us, they are no longer an issue. It's the same with age. I've never lied about my age. I do not understand that. Specifically, I don't understand how you can even try to fool around with your age when the Internet is there today.

Today people can not only find out what year I was born. Today it is easy to find out the day, the maternity clinic and the number of press contractions that my mother needed until I was outside. I would not be surprised if at some point a film appeared on YouTube showing the doctor how he, as a newborn, gives me the decisive pat on the butt. Well, maybe not, but the only reason is that YouTube didn't exist when I was born. Our age is something we cannot control. It's just a fact of life. I think it's great to get older and wiser. And to learn from my mistakes every day. For example, I'm glad I don't sniff glue like I did at twenty-four. And I'm happy that in a few years I'll only have to pay half if I want to go to the cinema or the museum. If I think about how often I go to the cinema or the museum, I save thirty dollars a year.

Getting older is not for wimps

When we were children, we longed to be older. At seven and a half we got tantrums when someone thought we were seven. Maybe some tears flowed back then. Can you imagine that in adults? "This is Marsha, she's forty-two." "Forty-two and a half! You always forget half a year! I'm almost forty-three quarters! "I don't know exactly when people stop wanting to be older. Most people still seem to enjoy their twenties and thirties. But it stops around forty. You are already "beyond good and evil". I have no idea why that should be bad. "Beyond good and evil" probably means that you have the worst behind you. That it can only get better. And I think that's wonderful.

Then, when it's about fifty or sixty, most people become quite silent about their age, but if they approach seventy or eighty, they proudly tell them how old they are, because it's an accomplishment «To have made it by then. Nobody turns XNUMX and claims to be only ninety-five. I don't really understand why this lie is so common among middle-aged people. We should celebrate every year that we were allowed to experience that made us happier and healthier. Because honestly, it can't get any better than this.

Self love: Be who you are and be happy with yourself!

But what I actually want to say is: we are what we are. We look like this and that, we speak in our own way, we walk in a certain way. I have a pretty stilted walk because I'm a supermodel. But sometimes I run, just for fun. If we accept ourselves, the others also accept us. So be exactly what you really are. Enjoy it. For real. Embrace yourself. Accept who you are. Unless, of course, you're a serial killer.

I know: It's easy to say that when you are me. Maybe you want to know what I'm doing? Well, I'm going to work with the top down. That means the roof of my convertible is open. I wear a beret - it helps me to think and I feel so French. For the same reason I suck on a straw and bring it to my mouth like a cigarette. Which in turn is the reason why a whole busload of tourists is staring at me in amazement.

So believe me: being yourself is also okay when you are yourself. If you had called me fifteen years ago and told me that I was going to become "the face" of Cover Girl, I would have answered: "You are crazy!" And: "Where did you get this number from?" And now you see me. I am completely myself and am still a well-known, much sought-after supermodel all over the world. I've even been to Paris before.

Have fun: Take things easy, then life will be easier

The same goes for writing books: people keep asking me where I am taking the time from and why at all. Well, it happened like this: Last June I drove through a long tunnel and the cell phone reception was a little bad. I was telephoning my agent and told him, "I'm at the lake and have visitors." What my agent heard was, "I just got an idea for a book." Until we found out this was an incredibly funny misunderstanding, I had already signed a mountain of papers (who has time to read all the stuff?) - including a new book contract.

That had happened to me a few years ago. At that time I also had my agent on the phone - it was about the first wrinkles - and I said: "I think I'll try royal jelly or something." And he thought I said: "I want to be on the jury of American Idol. "Well, I've got a new phone now. And since then I've also known that my agent's name is Marvin, not Blarvin.

However, I quickly realized that it is not so easy to write a book. Of course, it's not as difficult as working in the coal mine or teaching teenagers to drive. But it's still not easy. I really didn't think it was that difficult, after all I stand in front of the TV camera every day and talk for about an hour. I usually...