Why do you care?

One consequence of powerlifting for the last 10 years is that most pants are relatively tight to wear.

I never minded this — in fact I generally like the feeling of form-fitting shorts. But about a year ago I started to become self-conscious about it when someone at a café felt compelled to say (rather loudly) to the person sitting next to them as I walked by: “that guy’s shorts are way too tight, yuck!”

My emotional state turned into a blend of fury, uncertainty, shock, sadness, and shame.

Today I went to my local coffee shop — a similar setting to where I ran into that stranger a year ago — wearing shorts for the first time in 6 months. Self-conscious thoughts flooded my mind until one thought slapped some sense into me:

“Why do you care about what a stranger thinks about you?”

Just the clarifying question I needed, because the answer is that there isn’t a good reason.

Everyone judges — even those who make the well-intentioned claim, “I don’t judge.”

It’s also perfectly normal and understandable to feel self-conscious at times.

The choice remains the same in light of this:

You can decide to continue to give random strangers the power to make you feel like something less than yourself.

Or you can decide to wholly embrace with pride everything that you are.