The Ugly Duckling

I google for most beautiful women and I spend hours looking at all the gorgeous faces out there. Then its an hour of most handsome men out there. These gorgeous specimens of human race that I can never match up to in the slightest way, remind me of a friend I have known from high school and here’s that story.

My friend Justin, was back in the day and still is not good looking but he struts around like he were the He man himself. So one day I asked him what gives? is he living in denial or what?

He said: “it is or what”? and laughed for a whole minute, while I looked on quizzically. Then he started talking:

Then he spun around slowly and asked “what do you think…now”. Then he went on:

Then he asked me: “you wanna hear more?” and all I could do was say Yes. What else was I going to say. So he went on.

He paused and gauged my reaction; I was all ears but really thinking, this guy is so full of himself. So he blurted out “so you think I’m self indulgent and superficial?” I stuttered a faint yes at being discovered, and he continued “tell me about a significant world event that happened yesterday”. I racked my brain for some internet piece I may have stumbled across about a bombing or an earthquake or an assassination plot…nothing. Then he asked “if I asked you to buy shares in bitcoin would you buy?”…I was silent and puzzled at this line of conversation because I had heard of bitcoin but I was far from being able to buy shares; I was scratching to make ends meet at my Best Buy job. He probed further “how about investing in real estate?” now I was beginning to feel like a loser, and of course he read it. Then continued…

Jesus, man, how do you find the time. “Audio books my friend, invest in Scribd or Audible if you must…and stop wasting your life on internet porn for free” he jabbed back. Then what felt like ages, we were silent and gazed back at each other. Then I said: Seven years Justin, so this is what you have been doing. He said “something like that…bottom line, when I look in the mirror, I see my eyes and the burning desire to set and achieve the next goal, I don’t see the face, I see the mind and what it manifests as in my eyes, and that is what others see. I don’t see the imperfections in my body proportions or my height at a modest 5 foot 8, most girls at the bar tower over me, but that doesn’t stop them from getting past my unlikable features and sinking into my eyes”. I joked: yeah eyes are the windows to your soul.

more silence…

He stood up and extended a handshake, then firmly squeezed a friendly handshake and while still holding my hand said,

and then he left my hand and was about to walk away, leaving me bewildered…there was so much more I wanted to ask and know about…but I clutched at a straw and said: so what’s your big goal right now? what big mountain are you aiming to conquer today?

In one suave move he turned and started to move away saying:

…and he was gone. That was two years ago and I have kept track of my friend and he has definitely gone places and met the people he had intended to meet.

I concluded this from our brief heart to heart that day. Based on his appearance and looks back then you could ignore him, but based on the way he projects himself to the world and the power he wields due to the work he constantly puts in himself, he is not only prominent and noticeable, but people gravitate towards him in a group or alone. Age makes you graceful anyways and he has been 10 years in the making after high school. I have concluded that he became so focused on doing and “being” that he started to ignore the “is”, never again to have time to consider that he “is” ugly or “is” this or that but only to become and “be”. So every time a I get a pang of insecurity about my looks compared to the beauty that surrounds us 24/7 in our homes and outside, I remind myself of the ugly duckling that was, my friend Justin.

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