by Carl Conrad

Created on: April 01, 2009   Last Updated: January 30, 2012

She does not prance on stiletto heels or scuff along in motorcycle boots. She does not mix her leggings with a short skirt or wear the kind of fashion in which the slightest misstep can turn a statement into the need for an explanation. There are no visible tattoos or piercings; her hair is tasteful, trimmed, always appropriate. Her subtle smile beams experience not availability. She's an older, wiser, and absolutely stunning woman of the future.

The difference is grooming. A woman who looks like she behaves ~ composed, capable, confident. She dresses with taste not with haste; she makes decisions by choice not by convention; her style is already-there, not trying-to-be. The woman of the future is a woman who has found herself, who expands her influence by her wisdom not her whims, who helps others because she is not preoccupied with herself, and who knows where she is going because it is her objective not her destiny.

An older woman is stunning because she makes an impression without trying to impress. Her signature is an end not a beginning, a conclusion to a transaction not an application for something new. She's been there and knows what it's like. Hers is not a delusion of wishes but the satisfaction of finished goals. Where else but from maturity does one look backward onto accomplishments instead of forward into pretence?

The woman of the future is inspired by possibilities. She has overcome obstacles and left them in the past. She has emerged from oppression and disregard to find herself leading parades that once she only dreamed of joining. Her banner is not of victory but of participation; her quest is not to dominate but to share.

We learn from the woman of the future that things we once thought impossible were merely obfuscations, things once denied merely needed to be rethought. It is not defeat to be patient, but it is persistence that prevails. Victims are never winners, winners refuse to be victimized.

To become a woman of the future, one must first live a life that finds fulfillment in her own self-awareness; not accepting but becoming, not disparaging but encouraging, not replacing but repairing, not criticizing but contributing.

The women that we revere in the future will be older and wiser, but they will also be stunning not because of their appearance but because of their presence.

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