What's that on your sleeve? Oh, it's your heart...

So I'm obsessed with a few TV shows this season. I have my weekly Tivo line-up which I start reviewing around 10 PM each night. One show that I am particularly fond of is Biggest Loser (as I invariably sit on my sofa drinking a Dr. Pepper and eating my favorite chips while I watch it) -- I'm just amazed that these people have the fight and stamina to change their lives on national TV. One thing that I love most about the show is when the contestants reveal their "goal shirts" -- literally a T-shirt with their reason for wanting to lose all the weight. Things like "To become half the man, so I can be twice the man" and "To finish what I've started, for once" and "To be a smokin' hot bikini mama". They are wearing their life motivation on a T-shirt. Genius. Raw and Frighteningly Intimate. But Genius.

I hear people say, "I wear my heart on my sleeve," but I don't know anyone who really, honestly does that. I don't know anyone bold enough to say what they really feel and what they really mean and own it. I mean, like, wear-it-on-your-shirt kind of own it, so you can't take it back, justify it, or explain how it was misconstrued.

Can you imagine the T-shirts? Things like "I'm insecure" or "I think I'm better than you" or "I don't know if I trust you". So maybe that's a bit harsh, but we all have those moments - a lot of moments - that are driven by insecurity, elite-ism, or skepticism. And we do things that either hurt or isolate other people to mask the true root of our actions. But it seems like if our thoughts were spilled out for all to see, that mask would be gone. We'd all see the truth. But more than that, maybe we would all cut each other some slack and even help each other out because our shirts wouldn't be that different.

Maybe one day our shirts will say, "Me too, but we'll get through this together."