Extreme makeovers are all the rage these days, with too many people addicted to Botox injection parties and reality shows. Plastic surgery is on the rise. Many people are trying to match the extraordinary measures actors and actresses go through to look perfect on the screen. Yet, the shortcuts to create biomedical happiness by having surgery, taking supplements or dieting don't usually fulfill their promise. Besides, beautiful people are not automatically happy people.

Attaining the highest degree of your beauty is not about looking good during social interaction, or physiological perfection, and you can't get there via technology. It's a growth process, a transformation of self through awareness and learning. It's about meaning, and being real. It's an emotional and spiritual walk, and it requires faith fueled with liberal doses of loving kindness.

Every day, I have the delight and privilege of loving Richard, my husband, a real, human, emotionally accessible man. We're about the same age, and our looks have corroded a bit over time. After almost 20 years, though, we have grown together in ways that go far deeper than the surface of our skin. Our life is lovely even if it doesn't match the criterion of love in movie fantasies. We laugh together, we share the struggles of daily life together, and the thought that he might die before I do fills me with dread. All the muscle-bound male models in the world couldn't replace my very own, sensual, outgoing friend. It took me 37 years to find him, and I'm not about to replace him with the so-called "esthetic perfection".