Wearing a Tight Muscle Shirt Is Nourishment For The Ego
Last Update On December 15, 2011
I've recently being invited to a rather expensive restaurant for a lunch. While the place itself was quite mind blowing with extreme amount of hot waitresses I was more shocked by the male presence there. (I'm not gay but thanks for asking.)
Most of the men were f* huge. Probably 5 out 8 men had 16-18+ inches arms and very, very tight shirts. One of them while having amazing arms was wearing a T-Shirt I would be able to fill when I was 135 pounds in high school. In other words - he was wearing his little kid shirt in order to make his arms and torso look even bigger. While everyone is of course free to wear any kind of clothes I feel this is kind of wrong, maybe.
The way I see it people who try to bring forward their muscles and especially arms are ego lifters and the ego is never a good thing because it means you are worried way too much about the external factors around you. If you are training to impress others that's fine but you won't last long or may reach to steroids. The reason for this is very simple - the internal motivation is more important than anything external. If you wear a tight shirt to impress other strangers with your arms you have too much of an ego. Despite what people think the ego is not the real you. If fact it's the fake you. The You you want others to see. Not the real You.
To me people that do something only to impress others are fake and boring. There is a big difference between lifting weights for your own health and happiness and lifting weights so that you can flex in front of girls with fake boobs and lips. If that's what you are after it want be long before you quit training because your arms refuses to reach insert a measurement of choice here.
This is true for everything - not just lifting weights or showing your biceps. I've experienced similar confusion when I was a skater in high school. I always wanted to do cool tricks in front of girls in order to nourish my ego. Well, this was wrong because you can't do cool tricks without fails and stops here and there. It's just not possible to keep it forever if you want to progress in anything. You have to fail so that you know how to stand back up. It sounds way easier than it is. No doubt. But it has to be done. I enjoy myself and life the most when I forget others or their stupid opinion. Who cares anyway? I think that we suffer from paralysis caused by thinking too much about what others think about us However there are two versions to every story.
Some people are the exact opposite. They hide their best qualities from others. They feel ashamed and don't love themselves for whatever the reason. I'm pretty sure you know a pretty girl that does not appreciate what nature gave her or smart boys who call themselves nerds just because they don't get drunk or sleep with different women every night. This is also wrong. Have you ever seen a flower that feels sorry and ashamed of its beauty - no fucking way. Yes, the person next to you might not have what you have but does this mean that you should hide in your shell? . Absolutely no. Nobody benefits from similar behavior. I will get back to my skating days in order illustrate this.
In general the skating scene in my town was weak. It was like trying to get good at American football in Europe or soccer/football in USA. It's not the same. This was my situation and while I was putting a lot of effort my development was put on hold because of the poor opportunities around me. However from time to time there were some skating events where professional and amateur skaters would come to my town and I would be able to see some high class performance. In particular there were two skaters from Sweden who impressed me the most. The tricks they were doing, the style and the whole attitude were new to me. Just training with them gave me more power and more strength. I honestly think that I made more progress in two days training around those guys than I would have made for 2 or even more months of solo practice. I just felt so confident and brave that I was trying new tricks I was afraid of before. There is no doubt that I had the skills to do those tricks before I met those guys because you can't learn that much in two days. However I was lacking self-confidence and being around people who show their best qualities without worry helped me tremendously. It's like a transmission of energy. When someone around you is sad you may get sad. What I'm trying to say is that nobody benefits from you not being your best. I honestly think that this can only be achieved if you let go of your ego even for a little while.
Don't get me wrong I love big arms and big muscles in general and I have nothing against being muscular and worrying about your arm size or whatever. However you have to do it in order to impress yourself not others. Strangers come and go and their opinion is worthless to say the least. What's the point of trying to make them happy? If you feel good by appearing to be cool in their eyes you are showing a weakness and dependance on society's judgment. Of course we are all in this trap and this cannot be eliminated completely. It's impossible. What is possible however is that we limit it by knowing when we act just to impress others and when we act from the heart. I don't see why anybody would wear a shirt three times smaller than needed for any other reason than looking strong in the eyes of the commune. Let's keep it honest and buy proper size clothing.
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