Monday, February 3, 2014

"The Facts of Life and Self-Confidence"

I know you don’t care, but here’s the story of how I ended up learning about the facts of life. I’ve been obsessed with everything Seinfeld since I was a little kid.  I was  probably 10 when I was watching an episode called “The Fusilli Jerry” In the episode, George is concerned about his… um.. sexual performance. One of the great things about Seinfeld is that whenever they deal with controversial topics, they never came out and directly said what they were talking about. Everything is implied. This is a great comedy technique because the audience has to do some of the work by filling in the blank. The audience not only laughs because it’s funny, but they laugh because they did some of the work filling in the blanks. It should be said that this works for adults but not for 10 year olds. Needless to say, I had no idea what  the characters were doing in bed.  I was and still am a weird kid. I remember being really troubled and sullen about it. Finally, after my parents asked me multiple times what was bothering me, I finally spilled the beans. If I ever meet Jerry Seinfeld, I’m going to tell him that he’s the reason I learned about the facts of life.

However, learning about “the birds and the bees” had an unintended side effect. I remember when my parents gave me “the talk” it blew my mind. Because I learned, that out of the thousands of sperm racing to the egg, I was the one that won! And I’d never won anything before.  Oddly enough, it still serves as a confidence boost. Whenever I’m faced with a challenge, I think, “If I could win that race, I can accomplish anything!” Sometimes I repeat it to myself as a personal mantra, “I’m the sperm that won! I’m the sperm that won!” However, may I recommend if you adopt this as your personal mantra, not to whisper it or say it out loud? Because if people catch you repeating that to yourself, you get some weird looks. Usually I’m filled with so much self-confidence that I don’t care if someone catches me.
 
Can you blame me for thinking this way? My dad still lets me know!

However, I went to Walmart the other day and it shattered my self-confidence. I looked around and thought, “These are the sperm that won? But how?” That’s when I figured that the sperm’s race to the egg is less of a swimming competition and more of a NASCAR event. This is  how I stay the most humble person in the world.

A winner.

Another winner.

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