this post was inspired by a little montage I threw together last night. I did it on a whim, having spotted a couple of “fat pics” in one of my photo albums, and realising two things:
1. Exactly how much of a change there has been in the past 12 months
2. That my self-image THEN was almost identical to what it is now (most of the time).
what do I mean by that second bit?
basically I’m talking about “self delusion”. how I look now is, by and large, how I’ve looked, in my head, for the past couple of decades.
I knew there was “a bit of a spare tyre” around the middle, but (to me) I wasn’t anything like as bad as other people. health-wise I got away with things for many years, and as far as physical exercise goes, well that was easily dealt with; it’s never been my “thing”.
so I was 100% absolutely fine, no problem here, move on please…
except deep deep deep inside I really knew that was a lie
somewhere in my mind, some thought process or other knew the reality, and that’s what smashed its way to the surface just over a year ago.
reality was that I was, undoubtedly, heading for an early grave. I believe I was probably very lucky to make it to 40 without significant health issues (diabetes, heart disease etc.) and it would have required a lot more luck still to make it through the current decade of my life without having a major cardiac issue of some kind.
fortunately for me, my subsconscious did its level best to bring those ideas to the fore, and kick me into action.
anyway, here’s the montage
look at these pictures – they are a bit of a random collection really. the one on the left is probably about 10 years old now. the one with the purple shirt was taken a few years ago. the middle one was taken during our last trip to the UK April/May 2010.
incidentally – I think the seeds of serious doubt and concern were sown during that trip actually – I struggled to climb Glastonbury Tor. I’ve always worked up a bit of a sweat doing that climb, but to actually have to take a few breaks along the way was a first…
the last two are very recent, taken towards the end of 2012.
remember, in my head I thought I looked like the last two photos, even when I actually looked like the first three photos…
I guess it shows that positive self-image is not always a completely good thing!
