I would rarely let my eyes take a glimpse at the mirror. Every time I did, I hated what I saw. I’d see a short, pasty-white skinny kid with a face full of acne.
When you’re a teenager producing more hormones on a daily basis that McDonalds serves hamburgers, hearing the words, “You’re sweet but I’m sorry, I just don’t see you like that,” can be pretty disheartening!
I remember wearing a pair of shorts underneath my jeans and 2 under shirts to give the impression that I was a little bit bigger than I was. I dreaded the idea of having to play on the “skins” team in basketball practice because I’d have to remove my shirt and show just how vanilla I was. One of the most painful memories of my adolescence was planning my strategy around getting excused from class, once mid-morning and again mid afternoon. The entire purpose was to go to the bathroom to check on any whiteheads that may have formed over the last couple hours.
I hated what I saw! I hated who I was!
My insecurities were my companion for a very long time and I made a lot of bad decisions because of them.
I started drinking just to fit in – I had my first drink when I was 16 years old, I was head over heels for a girl who I had known for quite some time. This girl liked to have a few drinks on the weekends. I had never had a single drink in my life but when I did the math in my head and it looked something like this:
Girl + drinking = she looks like she’s having a fun time
so;
Me + drinking = me and the girl having fun together
Well, when working out new theoretical equations, mathematical or general life theories, there can be some trial and error. This one was a giant error!
I had my first drink in an effort to win over a girl. This led to a slow spiral out of control and eventually into a bout with alcoholism. Ironically enough, just after I started drinking, this girl stopped drinking and turned her focus to the church.
How do I put on muscle fast? Steroids! – In my early 20’s, I was tired of being skinny! No girl is going to want a 130 pound scrawn! I had been working out for a few years now and I had put on some meat but I was getting frustrated with how slow the process was moving.
Enter random meathead from the gym!
I’ll never forget how scared I was when that monster flipped my around and shoved a needle in my right ass cheek! My ass cheek swelled so bad that I had to sit on my left side for over a week!
I’ll also never forget the pure rage-fest that took place 6 months later while at work because I was having a tough time finding an address. “Dude,” my co-worker said, “you have got to stop taking that $#it! It’s starting to change who you are!”
In both of these situations, I was fixated on looking for something that was outside of me to ease my pain. I thought that if I got drunk, then I would be more fun and get the girl. I thought if I used steroids, I would gain more muscle and more muscle is what girls like. Both decisions came down to me wanting to feel like I was attractive to the opposite sex. The irony was that I was sadly mistaken… Neither led me to more attention from women, it only led to more disappointment and depression. I was avoiding the mirror; I was avoiding looking at what was really missing – on the inside.
Now that I have a little more life experience and let’s call it “wisdom,” I realized that the more you look for the answers “out there,” the further those answers will be. I learned that when you take care of and manicure what’s on the inside, there will be direct correlation to what’s on the outside. Attractiveness is a mirror image internally and externally.
I focused on fixing what’s on the inside. I let myself work through my “rock bottom,” I surrounded myself with the right type of people and I spent the time necessary to build from the inside out!
I did what it took to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say, “I love what I see!”
You know what’s sexy? Confidence, self awareness and having a healthy appetite for the process rather than trying to launch yourself straight to the destination. That’s sexy!
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