Lessons from a Freshman Pimple

If I look closely in the mirror, I can see a faint scar from a pimple that plagued my nose for most of October 1983.

One morning, early in my freshman year, my reflection greeted me with a bulging, red honker sticking off the end of my beak, blinking at the world like Rudolph’s schnoz. My heart sank. I was 45 days into high school, had not yet found my social footing, and was desperate for people to like me.

I wanted, more than anything, for that pimple to go away. But it was round, hard, and unripe, so its demise was nowhere in sight, unlike the growth itself. This was a problem.

Every grown-up knows that you can’t rush a pimple. Sure, you can keep the area clean and apply a warm compress and some Clearasil. Regardless, you still have to have to wait it out—give it a few days until it comes to a head, then destroy it with a pinch and a splat.  

But I didn’t know this in the month that “The Safety Dance” was the #1 song on the radio. My mother, who had seen loads of blemishes on my other siblings (and presumably herself), advised me to ignore it. But she was old—like 45 or something—so what did she know about the social pressures of ninth grade?

No, this disaster demanded action! So, I poked. I prodded. I squeezed that bulbous bastard until my eyes watered, but it just wouldn’t break. Finally, out of utter desperation, I brandished nail scissors to cut off the pimple’s top layer of skin.

In almost all cases, amateur surgery is a bad idea. And this case was no exception. My sloppy incision turned an otherwise run-of-the-mill zit into a bloody, festering wound. Instead of going away within the week, it stuck around for the rest of the month. All because I just couldn’t leave it alone.

With every passing day, my embarrassment drove me to more desperate measures. One dreary Monday morning, my attractive homeroom table mate, Mary Kay, asked me, "Paul, at the football game on Friday, were you wearing concealer on your nose?"

"What? No.” I lied to her beautiful face, every syllable another log on the fire of my shame. “Why would I do that?"

Of course I’d worn concealer. I had slathered on my sister’s Oxy 10 Cover in a futile attempt to distract the world from my tragic flaw, then lied about doing so. Puberty was not off to a good start.

First, do no Harm

In time, my face healed. But the experience taught me a lot. The obvious lesson is that many problems, perhaps most, are best resolved by leaving them alone or applying very limited remedies. As I am still learning, adult life requires determining which disagreements with a colleague, friend, or spouse require taking a stand and which do not.

Hippocrates advised, “First, do no harm.” This implies that you should not mutilate yourself with nail scissors but also that, when confronting problems with others, you should choose the words or actions that do the least amount of damage. So if your boyfriend or girlfriend says something insensitive, your cousin posts something ugly on social media, or some crazy lady flips you off on the highway, be like Elsa and let it go. It will save you time, stress, and the road rage of someone packing a Glock in her handbag.

One of the best ways to let things go is to worry less about what other people think. If I could plant one certainty into my teenage brain, it’s this: nobody else really cares about your pimple. They only care about their pimples or other perceived imperfections like their height, body type, or the shape of their ears.

As we get older, the things that stoke our insecurity change. Instead of stressing over acne, we worry about our status, money, and relative social position. In an attempt to cover up this anxiety, we injure ourselves by over-spending on junk we don’t need. We sacrifice economic autonomy on the altar of perception.

And guess what? In the same way your peers didn’t really care about your pimples, they don’t care about your new car, fancy vacation, Hermes belt, or lack thereof. They either have their own stuff, covet yours, or just don’t care because they’ve learned none of those things truly matter.

Mary Kay didn’t really care about my pimple, and I made it worse by trying to pretend I was perfect. But I eventually learned to let it go and reaped the rewards—at a party a few years later, she let me touch her boobs.