Looking at Cristiano Ronaldo, “insecure” is hardly the first word that comes to mind.
Ignoring all of the keyboard-psychologists out there, the man just doesn’t seem to have that much to be self conscious about. Success has been good to him. He is incredibly rich and one of the two best footballers in the world. If he wanted to, he could probably build a sun dial out of caviar and willing swimsuit models.
Furthermore, he clearly thinks he deserves the success that has come his way. So much so that many people think he is arrogant. They think that he can’t get enough of himself, and that he hates nothing more than his own greatness getting cut short.
And to be fair, he hasn’t done much to dissuade those beliefs.
He has been caught in disgust when his teammate scores and he does not, he has celebrated scoring a meaningless penalty as if he just won the World Cup, and his supermodel ex-girlfriend accused him of making her feel ugly and insecure.
Perhaps somewhere in there there is a picture of a man who is crying out for acceptance, but many people have trouble seeing it. Ronaldo seems to be a man that depends on himself, and knows it. He seems to have always been that way too, until now.
In a recent video for Nike, Ronaldo shared some experiences from his childhood, and one stood out in particular.
"When I was 12 years old most of the people told me 'Cristiano you are a very talented player but you are too skinny’.”
"So I put it in my mind that my body can improve. With dedication and hard work in the gym I improved a lot on that”
"That's why I'm always in good shape all year round. I do that kind of work, because I have to, it's part of me."
It was an insecurity with his size that pushed Ronaldo to be the athlete that he is today. He didn’t always have a spectacular work ethic, it was engrained in him as he tried to prove wrong those that told him he wasn’t good enough, that he was “too skinny.”
There is immense courage in making an admission like this; such honesty is hard to come by, and perhaps most of the world would not have thought Ronaldo capable of it.
As arrogant as Ronaldo might seem to be at times, he is not ignorant of what other people think or of what he thinks of himself. Sometimes that might lead to insecurity, but hopefully it also leads to something else: respect.
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