Many people have one thing (or more than one thing) that they absolutely hate about themselves, and feel so embarassed about that they can barely even speak about. Or not be able to speak about at all. For me, growing up, that thing was my chest. In year 3 of primary school, during swimming lessons, I realised that I had (to quote a phrase I read once in a book), "Enlarged pectorals with poor tone".

In fact for most of my life I believed I had actual gynecomastia (a.k.a. the dreaded "man boobs"). The reason why I thought I definitely had it was that a medical doctor examined me and told me that I had it. And that it was real actual "gyno" (i.e. real actual breast tissue), and not just fat. He also said that I'd qualify for corrective surgery under Medicare, which would be bulk billed (and therefore I could afford to get it done), because it counted as remedial and not cosmetic surgery.

He gave me a referral to a surgeon, and I made the appointment. I drove there and parked in the car park... And that was as far as I got. I would have been in my mid-twenties at the time.

My "enlarged pectorals with poor tone" were the largest reason why I grew up thinking I had literally zero chance of ever having a girlfriend or a wife. Yet by the time I was in my 20s, I'd already covered a lot of ground in many areas of life (including having girlfriends) which, as I grew up, I thought would be forever off-limits to me. Such as being able to go swimming in public with no shirt on. It wasn't even that severe (other than how I thought of it in my mind), and I was doing a lot of several forms of exercise by then, and some of the time I think I actually looked alright.

So by the time I got offered the surgery, I'd already made peace with much of it. And I thought about all the people on waiting lists, with actual medical conditions much more serious than my own. And I thought about how I'd always looked down on all those celebrities who spend crazy amounts of money on cosmetic surgery. And I thought about how, despite what the doctor said, the reason I wanted it done was purely cosmetic. It's not like it was going to affect my physical health in any respect whatsoever.

Over the following years, on and off, sometimes I wished that I'd got it done. Other times I was okay with it — and even sometimes saw it as beneficial in terms of motivation to exercise more and eat better.

Much more recently, I got an actual scan done of my pecs. Rather than just a manual examination like the original doctor had performed. And according to the scan, I don't have actual gyno at all, not a trace of it. I kept asking the radiographer over and over, were they sure? And they were sure.

I also find it's a big, big reminder that life isn't all about looks. There's obviously a huge amount of obsession with looks and physical beauty in the modern world. I don't imagine that Jesus would have been that concerned about having "the look" of the most admired celebrities of his day. Or been too worried about how other people would rank him in terms of his physical attractiveness.