As a kid, he was always the last one picked on teams. As a teen, he felt unattractive and never went on dates. As an adult, at work, he always seemed to get the least interesting, and least important, assignments.
To Travis, it was as if he was not really part of the world. He felt like a spectator, as if he were looking in on the action from the bleacher seats.
One morning, Travis was shaving. He hated looking at himself in the mirror. But that morning, as he scanned his face, Travis paused and looked into his eyes.
He looked beyond their shape and size and color. He looked inside his eyes, and he caught a glimpse of someone he had not seen before. He saw a good man, a man who had been hidden by insecurities, who had been afraid to venture out, a man the world did not know.
Travis stepped back and took a fresh look at himself. For the first time, he did not see himself as unattractive or marginal.
That day, Travis no longer felt like an outsider. He began to feel part of the world because he had begun to see the world, including himself, from the inside.