What Are Your Assets? Your Looks, Or Your Brain?

“You constantly downplay your beauty. Why?” Eve argues with Beverly at lunch.

“Yea,” Carol agrees, teasing. “You try to hide yourself behind ugly clothes and no makeup. Yet you exercise and take damn good care of yourself.”

“And you are the one, all of these guys go after whenever we go out,” Eve complains, sipping grape juice.

“Yeah,” Carol went on. “They don’t even glance at us for all of the money we spend to look beautiful. They look through all that bushes in you and see a beautiful flower.”

Beverly placed her sandwich on the left side of her plate and shared, “You have spent most of what you earn on looking beautiful. What have you gotten from it?”

“Compliments, dates with handsome guys, and great sex,” both friends agree.

“And?” Beverly asked.

In confusion and furled brows, they glared at her.

“If I am going to use most of my salary to look as good as you two, I want more,” Beverly protested.

Eve asks, “What else is there?”

“If I am going to put my hard-earned money, time, and energy into looking as good as you, I want a jet to take me around the world. I want my own Mediterranean island where I can plant and grow everything I want to eat. Plus, lots of animals to live with. And enough money to maintain my elaborate lifestyle and good looks.”

They burst out laughing. Then reality hit, and they glared at her thinking.

Eve says, “Models do make money from their looks.”

“Prostitutes too,” Carol adds.

“Which are you?” Beverly asks chewing a mouthful of her sandwich.

Two pairs of eyes stared her down, and she educates, “my grandmother believes that the brain will outlast the body. Look at President Biden and lots of other elderly people. Their bodies look bad to many, but most of us envy them for their brain power.”

“Damn!” Eve shouts.

“Yeah,” Carol agrees. “Look at all the old geniuses. Their bodies, yuck. But their brains are beautiful.”

“My grandmother says beauty is more than our physical appearance. Real beauty doesn’t live in how we look. It’s in how we live and treat humans, plants, animals and our world,” Beverly quotes her Nana.

“Wow!” Eve exclaimed.

“She suggests I use my brain as my asset instead of my looks. Which is more expensive and doesn’t last,” Beverly shares. “Plus, my brain can give me what my body can’t.”

“So, I will probably run out of money to maintain my look-good self, but won’t run out of ways to improve my life by using my brain,” slipped out of Carol's thoughts.

“But if we take care of our brain as we do our looks, we will look good as we age,” drops from Eve's thoughts.

“So that’s why she is still teaching in her eighties!” Carol exclaimed.

“And she still looks good too!” Eve adds. “It’s all brain power? Damn, I thought she found the fountain of Youth.”

“She did, it’s in how was use and treat our brains,” Beverly enlightens.

“I know there was something weird about your grandmother,” Carol remarked.

“I like her idea too,” Eve admits.

“Really?” Beverly said, giggling.

In my culture, looking good is more important than living good! But if you live well, then you will end up looking good. How we live sometimes shows on the outside for the world to see. They will judge, criticize, or compliment you. I have seen how looking good, continued poverty for thousands of my people.

For me, looking good means nothing if I am poor, which will cost money to maintain. Money that I should use to feed and take care of myself.

I have seen the remnants of both sexes' quest to use their looks as assets. My brain is mine because I have also seen how it outlasts the body. The ninety-year-old cases that I care for, their brains can spin mine around more than ninety times per minute.

Invest in your brain power.

Looks mean nothing if your brain isn’t working accordingly. — Annelise Lords

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoy it.