Pimple On My Ass
Location matters for pimples, too.
Last week, I got a pimple, not on my ass. It was my face. It had been a while since I had gotten a pimple. That’s one of the positives of growing older.
It was big, plump, and red. Like a ripe tomato. You could see it from a mile away. I saw it growing up and blossoming from a zit to a full-grown pimple. I had to ensure I didn’t grow attached to it, even though it seemed permanently attached to me.
The pimple didn’t bother me. Other people seeing me with a pimple did. People pointed it out. It pointed right back at them. It consumed me more than it should have. It’s just a pimple.
It was fine until I got another pimple. This one, too, wasn’t on my ass. It was on my back. But for the sake of the argument, let’s say it was on my behind.
This pimple was as red as the first one, but there was only one caveat - no one else could see it. Only I knew about it. And by default, I didn’t care about it, and it didn’t bother me. And I didn’t bother it.
That’s what healed it. With the pimple on my face, I tried various experiments, applying cleanser, ice, and a lotion my sister gave me. I ended up aggravating the pimple more. The one on my back, left unattended, healed on its own.
That’s when I realized how conditioned we are to other people’s opinions. A pimple on my ass might be a bigger cause of worry than on my face. But that didn’t matter. The only significant part was how people construe me.
We are wired to think about other people’s opinions of us.
It’s just that - opinions. It’s not you. You are more than your pimple or anything else that people provide you with an opinion on. When someone gives you an opinion, they project their conditioning and biases on you. They don’t mean harm. It’s just how they look at the world. You don’t have to change your world because of that. Take what you need from the opinion and discard the rest.
Most things in our lives deserve a pimple-on-the-ass treatment, but we give it the on-face treatment.