Just Who Are You Trying To Impress, Anyway?

My wife lies to me, regularly.  She tells me, straight-faced, such outrageous fibs as “you look great” and “you’re so skinny” and “don’t you look handsome.”  I know these to be lies because we do, in fact have mirrors in our home and, despite the fact that I wear glasses, my corrected vision is still 20/15.  So I know she’s either a bold-faced liar or she needs to make a trip to the optometrist herself.  Considering the fact that in all other aspects of her day-to-day life she seems to see just fine, I’m inclined to believe the former over the latter.  Because the alternative would be to believe that she in fact does think I look “great” or “handsome” or “skinny,” and this can’t be true.  I’ve seen myself.  I have pictures. They’re not pretty.  Or “handsome.”  But then again, if she allows me to live until July, we will have been married for 12 years.  She must have stuck around for some reason, and I can say with absolute certainty that it aint money (there is none), and it aint my personality (I have none).  So maybe it is my boyish good looks, if by “boy” you mean warthog and by “good” you mean horribly disfigured.  Now if you’ve made it this far in the article, you are no doubt asking “what in the word is the point of all of this self-depreciation?”  Rest assured, there is one.  The point, friend, is this:  We all have a warped sense of how we look and feel about ourselves, despite how others view us.  Some of us )you know who you are) are inclined to believe we are far more important and pretty than we really are.  You may know these people as “Kardashians” or by their earlier name “Hiltons.”  Most of us, however, believe ourselves to be far uglier, fatter, and stupider than we actually are.  We don’t give ourselves enough credit.  We spend so much time worrying about what others might think that, more often than not, we don’t listen to what others actually tell us they think!  But at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, it doesn’t matter.  No don’t get me wrong:  I do care what people think of me.  I want to be thought of as nice, kind, intelligent, not the stinky guy, etcetera.  But I can’t worry about what people think of how I look, because that’s probably the part of myself I have the least amount of control over and the most warped perspective about.   I can control how I treat people, how I talk to them, and what I say.  I cannot, barring surgical intervention, change the size of my nose or my ears or the look of my skin.  Even in running, at a certain point, there is no more weight loss, there is no more changing of the shape of your body,  there is no more change in the way your clothes fit.  At a certain point, even running, you will just be.  And that is just fine.  Because hopefully, the change you get from running, more than your physical appearance, will be on the inside.  You will feel better internally.  You will feel better about yourself, despite how you think you look.  You will feel more proud of yourself.  And all of that will keep you going, mile after mile.  Because at the end of the day, you’re not doing this for anyone else, just you.  True, it will help you become a better person, but you’re doing that for you, too, aren’t you?  Don’t we all want to be better people?  At the end of the day, you’re not trying to impress anybody but yourself.  I ran 10.3 miles today.  8 months ago, I couldn’t run 1 mile.  Should you be impressed by that?  No.  I don’t want you to be.  It’s really not a big deal for you.  There are thousands of people that run farther and faster than I ever will.  But it’s a big deal for me, because I am proud of myself for having done it.  And that’s what I hope to inspire in you.  The thought, the idea, that YOU CAN DO IT.  I don’t get anything out of it.  But you will, if you strap on those shoes and hit the road.  You’ll be proud of yourself.  And you’ll impress yourself.   Because you’re the only person you have to impress.  Everyone else in your life was impressed by you a long time ago, or they wouldn’t still be there.  Have fun!