The Feel Good Factor

As we were growing up we were constantly taught about how looking good doesn't matter if you don't feel good inside. It doesn't matter which situation it is feeling good inside will make it happen for you.

It could be a job interview, the first day at a new job, the marriage day, the next big presentation, meeting with a big client, etc. You got to be feeling good inside to be doing good as well. Of course dressing up to look good in such situations is important also but the feel good factor comes from feeling good inside. You got to have your mojo.

Now, I am not too much of a philosopher when it comes to such things (liar!!). My feel good inside thing ends at the vest and underwear. Yes, this is a post about UTP's law of undergarments. I mean when it means to feel good inside is all about wearing the best vest and underwear. The best thing about undergarments is that nobody knows what you are wearing or whether you are wearing them at all and it is really up,close and personal. For some people its a little bit more up and close than personal.

You could be wearing a colorful red underwear with blue polka dots inside but with a perfectly glowing suit with a crispy shirt and tie on top, nobody knows. Accept it or not, on some days you don't feel like wearing it at all. That's the true humans that we really are unfortunately cultured by the modern society.

So that's what I do as well. I got my special set of  crispy new vest and underwear which is kept for un khaas dinon kay liay (those special days). Yes, we men have it too.  It could be a football match for all you know. You have to do the same things you did the last time your favorite team won and that could mean wearing the same underwear as well you did on that day.

They stay and stay in the cupboard until the special day comes sometimes unwashed to keep the lucky charm it had from last time.

In that sense I do become a little superstitious as well cos everything just has to be right on the special day. Right from shaving that extra little hair on my beard line on the neck to wearing the right sock first and then the left one. I just got this subconscious rituals that sometimes even I don't realize. The vest, the underwear, the lucky shirt, the lucky tie... damn ... as I write here I am surprising myself as well with the list.

The important thing to note is that I am so dependent on this feel good factor that if something out of the above goes wrong, I am that teeny-weeny bit less confident. The feel good factor gives me that extra mental edge, that pumped up feeling which is vital when you are on a mission with the goal in sight.

To make this whole feel good factor thing be special and work, you got to be a little more low-key on the normal days. The larger the gap between the feel bad factor and feel good factor is, the better it works. So on the off days, I ll wear my second choice of shoes, my second choice of pants, the yellow shirts, the older socks with a hole on the toe with the lose elastic that keeps slipping down to the ankles, you know...

So when an important day comes, it has the desired effect. I am not crazy right? Are there more people like me out there?

The good thing is that my wife has responded perfectly to this and it used to be a nice leg-puller for her earlier but it has kinda sunk in now towards realization that I need this. That just makes it a doubly-feel-good factor for me with the wife on board as well with my stupid rituals.