A story written by Julio Carrasco
Many of you have heard the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover right? Well how many of us are guilty of judging a book by a cover? What if that book was a person? Or the clothes of that person? I’m sure you can say yea I’m guilty of that Julio! Well… even I’m guilty of that and I work each day on not doing that but know just like everyone else I’m human. So that means I and everyone us are not perfect. We have to work each day on developing ourselves for a better human being and I’m a big advocate of self-improvement. Why do I begin with judging a book by its cover? Well I was the book on Wednesday April 19th 2017 in the afternoon heading downtown for my self-development leadership training. Let me share with you this story about me. So I am a bariatric patient. For those that don’t know that meaning I’ll say it in English language; I had the weight surgery 11 years ago.
I used to weigh 450 pounds. At the age of 21. Currently at 32 years old I’m 201 pounds however I’m not going to get too specific on the whole transformation, that’s on my other post you can read about. I had lost a lot but even though I did I still had excess skin that only surgery could fix. So I had a 1st part surgery after 11 years on Wednesday April 12th, 2017 at the University of Chicago. I had a Belt Lipectomy. A 4 to 6-hour procedure. Which was removal of excess skin around the waist and buttocks area. I got about 10 pounds of excess skin. On my road to recovery and healing because even though that amount of skin was removed I still had to deal with swelling. So coming home Saturday evening April 15th, 2017 I had no idea an interesting dilemma would occur. I had found out my regular clothes weren’t able to fit me so I had to buy temporary pants because my jeans and dress pants both a size 34 would not go over my waist and so I bought a pair of temporary pants which were a size 40! A 34 to a 40 I know that is something. Well this kicks off our story…
On Wednesday April 19th, 2017 I had to be downtown at my John Maxwell Mastermind were we go over John Maxwell’s books on Leadership and how to not only help develop ourselves but our organization that were apart of and take ideas back for our goals and our organization goals to be more successful. I begin my journey to the brown line from my home in Albany Park area walking down the street to Kimball Brown line carrying my umbrella or as I call it my “Puerto Rican Cane” because it was helping me walk since I had to walk slow still since I was still recovering from the surgery a week prior. Only thing I realized while walking with my temporary pants is that I didn’t have a belt and so it was difficult walking trying to keep them up so they didn’t fall off while walking and also making sure I didn’t trip since they were more big in the leg areas. In my leg areas they almost look like balloon pants I kid you not! Already I began to notice people beginning to stare at me and I hadn’t even reached the train yet because I in my own opinion felt people probably were like thinking I was getting ready to go to clown university wearing those pants since they were big in the legs even though they fit me temporarily with the swelling I had from the surgery. Finally arriving to the brown line I get on the train which takes me a longer walk than I am usual and I find a seat in one of the carts near the back that is a single seat. Dealing with the mild discomfort, I wondered to myself for a quick second why did I get on this train and decided to go downtown and not just skip it and stayed home, then my inner voice shut that doubt and said you made a promise you would show up and you are able to walk so don’t let that stop you from your own personal growth Julio. Sometimes if you have a positive inner voice speaking to you from your heart it will give you good advice that drowns out the negative advice. While heading downtown I noticed from the corner of my eye a few people staring at me but not fully stare but were they glance at you and eye gawk you for a second and turn the other way. I could only imagine what they might have been thinking when they saw me or whether they were thinking anything at all. Sometimes it makes you wonder you know? You get self-conscientious about yourself if you see yourself in a mirror and not like what you see.
As I got downtown at my stop was the next leg of my journey which even though it was about a 2 to 3 block walk it was going to be a slower one since I couldn’t walk as fast with what I had going on. Last thing I needed was it start raining and I have to use my umbrella and next thing you know my pants fall as I am walking. Thankfully that didn’t happen. However, as I was walking slowly I did notice as people walked past me some people gazed at my pants and I could actually hear some laughs as they walk past me. I can only imagine what they could have been thinking. I want to give a visualization of what I was wearing. My temporary dress pants were light khaki color, and I had a bright red dress shirt. Since I didn’t have a belt my pants had to go up pass my belly button and I probably could have pulled off the Steve Urkle look if I had suspenders and go “did I do that!?”. Getting to my location finally I was glad I made it because as soon as I got there it began to rain so I just missed the rain which would have been worse in my own situation. After about an hour at my weekly Mastermind group I made my journey back home which ironically as I left it had just finished raining so in a way I was glad but then I had to deal with the puddles around the streets. So slow and steady I made my way back to the train and back home. Once again I could get that feeling that people were eye gawking me and giving me weird looks and trying not to laugh at my appearance. In a way I felt I was being judged by my outer appearance and not knowing what was underneath me. It wasn’t as if I could just lift my shirt and say to people this is why I have to wear this so please don’t judge! I figured by writing this I can vent in a way that was more beneficial and also would heal me by writing how I felt about my day. So in a way this would be like my “Dear Journal”.
After making it home while being on the train and walking back I could probably say I had over 10 different people give me looks and a few laughs. Can I actually say that was towards me? No, but as a human being we all have that sense that others are judging us based on what we wear, how we look, the shape of our body, and more. So we start playing in our mind what could they be thinking about us? We start putting ourselves down based on what others think of ourselves. Self-doubting what makes us unique. Here’s the other side of that coin. We do the same thing to others as well. We will eye gawk them, and think in our minds or laugh and do exactly what they did or we think they did and not realize what we’re doing. We say we will never judge people by their looks, age, race, size, etc., but we still do it and many times were not aware of it. We become oblivious to it and just go with it our everyday selves. I’ve done that at times and I admit I need to be better at not doing that and hence why trying to self-improve myself each and every day puts me on a path to stop myself from judging people (books) by their outer (cover) appearance and to search their heart. Rather than give you the full picture of my body and scare some of you all I figure just from my stomach area you could see how the progress is going.
There is still swelling around my stomach area that will go down eventually. I have to wear a bind around it as well as compression type clothing to bring the swelling down. Not to mention after my surgery when I woke up and saw my stomach it was the first time seeing my belly button. My belly button was always an innie not an outie. Sometimes we have to take time and wonder what is the story behind that person and if there is one we should be quick to think and slow to judge because their might be something that we aren’t aware of. Rather than eye gawk and laugh why not give a friendly smile and say hello, good day, how are you? Have a nice day! Sometimes a smile and a compliment can go a longer way than you realize. So my friends don’t judge a book by a cover, judge it by its heart because that heart could be a graduate heart.
Yeah this book is a graduate heart because on Saturday May 13th I shall be walking across the stage at UIC Forum graduating from Wright College with my Associates Degree. For those that know me personally on here know that I’ve strived myself on being not only a goal seeker but a goal achiever. I’m the type of person that writes my goals and checks off after completing them and take myself for the next year to do better than the previous year. Summing up this post I’ll share a little bit here… From going to 450 pounds to 201 pounds to participating in the Lung Cancer Run in September of 2013 and also a 5k in Utah in the month before August of 2013 with Dr. Oz and also the Lung Cancer Run 10k in 2014 and as well the Chicago Half Marathon in 2015 to which in October of this year 2017 I plan on running the Bank of America Marathon I’ve come quite a way when it comes to achieving goals. I’m not bragging I’m living out what I was created to do and I hope through my becoming a goal achiever I can inspire people to write down their goals and do the same. It’s not just to say you want to do something you have to write it down. I learned that from a book that started it all for me called Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill on goal setting. That book has been around since 1937 so if you want to learn something new you have to read from something that is 80 years ago. That started me on this path and journey in my life and I truly believe that slow and steady always wins the race…Start today on you becoming a goal achiever and living out your own WHY or story but also when you are out on the street and encounter someone remember don’t judge a book by its cover… judge by its heart.
