Remember Bryson back in the 11th grade?
You may have liked Bryson well enough. He wasn’t always a total douche-canoe to you and your awkward friends. He was a hardworking blowhard, relatively popular, and successful with the ladies. Between the Under Armour shirts, the casual loose-fitting gym shorts, and the on-brand Nikes his parents could actually afford, he seemed like he had it all figured out.
However, Bryson made one fatal error. He thought virtue signaling would help him level up. He thought it would be the key to unlocking greater heights of social discourse. He essentially became an early-2021 version of the classic wax-winged Icarus, flying way too close to the sun.
His crime?
He insisted on continuing to wear a mask, despite being vaccinated against C-19… twice.
So concerned with what the dutiful mask-wearing giggle-girls and hair-twirlers thought about him, he couldn’t pull himself to walk the halls mask-free.
I don’t want people thinking I’m some kind of anti-vaxxer, he thought.
I can’t have people confusing me for a Republican, he worried.
People might think I’m trying to endanger others, he fretted.
As a result, by the time 12th grade rolled around, Bryson was so consumed with what others thought about him that his confidence level suffered. His batting average with the ladies plummeted. His entire posture sagged like a pair of late 90’s urban youth jeans.
He thought continuing to wear the mask, post-vaccine, would protect him from the judgment of others.
Unfortunately, there was a fundamental fact that Bryson had not yet learned; a lesson that most people don’t learn until sometime deep into their forties — if at all. He hadn’t yet learned that most people are too wrapped up in worrying about what others think about them that they never get around to worrying about someone else.
Basically, nobody gave a crap whether Bryson wore a protective mask or not.
After graduation, Bryson went on to become a shade-tree auto-mechanic with a meth habit and a dark-net porn addiction. Using all of his old pandemic masks, his mom helped him knit a powder-blue quilt that was surprisingly comfortable, considering the cheap material used to make them. He never fully recovered from his eleventh-grade peak and spent no less than two nights a week crying himself to sleep.
Of course, the moral of the story is: Don’t be like Bryson. But you’re no dummy, so you already knew that. The best thing you can do is make a decision and be confident in that decision until presented with new facts and evidence that forces you to change your position.
Oh, and if you know someone like Bryson in your personal life — someone who is constantly seeking validation and signaling to the world how virtuous they are — send them this article immediately. It could literally save their life.