Becoming Free

Must of us are very particular about our look. Hair, clothes and accessories are all carefully chosen. Even the I couldn't care less look is often carefully planned and designed. So what happens to that perfectly trimmed person when we become athletes?

When we become athletes we go through a kind of metamorphosis where we strip off that person we designed and become more the person we really are. It's kind of a lost cause to worry about our hair when it's plastered to our head with sweat. Our sports outfits are pretty much like everyone else's. We can have different colors and designs but T-Shirt and shorts or exercise pants are all pretty much the same.

Something wonderful happens when we leave that artificially created person behind and show the world the person inside. We often surprise ourselves at how much more comfortable we become with other athletes. You can put two athletes together and they can talk for the long hours of a marathon, when normally they might be to shy to even speak to a stranger. Maybe that's the secret, when we become athletes we are no longer strangers. We are part of the brother and sisterhood of athletes.

When we arrive at a race, we may not know anyone there but before its over we will have had some good conversation and we will have encouraged and been encouraged by lots of new friends. When we lose our normal decorations and show our real self to the world, it makes us so much more approachable and easier to like.

But as important as the face we expose to others is the person inside we discover ourselves. We often become that person we made up and that becomes our reality. When we remove the bling and the "Look", we find a person we didn't even realize ourselves was there. We find a person we like and look up to as someone we always wanted to be and didn't know we were.

The athlete can put on a ball cap over his/her bedhead, throw on some sweats and your ready to do whatever, no other preparing is necessary. We become comfortable in our own skin and the made up layers of decorations don't seem so important anymore. Now putting on a look can be something you do for fun and not something you do to hide behind.

Thanks for reading.

Walking Panda