My Ripped Underpants And Why I Won’t Replace Them

If you know me well enough, you’ll know my underpants are ripped. By ripped I mean tattered black rags of cheap synthetic fiber succumbing to a painful death. I do my best to resew them with the only pink non-synthetic linen thread I could find. I’m clearly a beginner sewer, because the freshly patched crevices reopen, often within days, especially after biking. Everyone tells me to replace them and I don’t. For a long time, I didn’t understand why. I gave myself some excuses or reasons, like that I’m stubborn, or I want to understand the value of clothes, or to see how long I can make em last. I finally found a reason I’m happy with as to why I don’t replace my disintegrating underpants. In short, it’s a problem I choose for myself instead of playing victim to problems life serves me on a silver dish, smacked across the head. Metaphorically it’s like choosing to be a big dumpster truck that people load shit into versus a measly leaf, tossed around like the wind’s little bitch. Mark Manson says it best, “Choose your problems or they’ll choose you.” Wearing torn underwear is but a chance to choose my problems.

You might think I’m needlessly creating problems for myself. You would be right if the world was logical and things happened for a reason. It’s not and neither is this film, playing in our heads – this thing called subjective experience. Making my own problems makes many other problems irrelevant. Case in point – I don’t worry my underpants will tear because they’re already torn, plus sewing them together gives me the dopamine rush from improving a skill and it’s calming. Compare that to clothes ripping and having to go to the store to spend hard earned money on something that’ll rip some day too. One less worry and one more opportunity paints the perception of a happier life with more tranquility.

So dear friends and family, despite your loving intentions, please don’t rain on my parade.

- Marius