The other day, I shared an image of myself at age 17. In that image, I’m overweight with a bad haircut and even worse glasses.

Here I am two years later, right before the start of my sophomore year in college.

Lost a fair bit of weight there, didn’t I?

But here’s the sad thing — even looking like that, I distinctly remember being soooo self-conscious about my weight and body — I and never felt good about how I looked.

How sad is that?

And, honestly? Even though I’ve gotten better about it over the years, hardly a day has gone by that I’m not self-conscious about my weight.

It really, really sucks how we can let society — and ourselves — warp our self-image so badly.