a blue shirt story

Once there was a young man who took a job as a strength trainer. He showed up for his first day on the job in a blue shirt. Beneath the shirt were strong arms, chest and washboard abs. Man was he pumped. At one glance, the shirt did nothing to conceal the strength and stamina that was contained within. The blue shirt fit perfectly about his shoulders and magnified his strength. Some days he seemed to be less pumped than usual, but he didn't try to conceal that anymore than he tried to make the shirt cover the strength he contained. Everyone noticed it, but rather than be discouraged by this seeming chink in the armor, they were encouraged that he recognized it, took care of it, and returned to his normal pumped self. The trainees began to notice that his strength didn't lie in his lack of weakness, but rather in his ability to overcome those weaknesses. This is something very encouraging to the trainees who have plenty of weaknesses themselves. "Here is an exercise that I tried last night so that I could teach it to you. I wasn't able to, but I know it is possible, so let's learn it together."
Everyone who saw the young man working with his trainees, immediately recognized their great strides, the growing strength and fortitude and all-around good health that resulted. The owners of the gym admired the trainer's blue shirt. He looked so natural in it and filled it out so well. By now, most of the trainees had taken to wearing blue shirts, and they too, had begun to fill them out, to bulk up. Thus the observers assumed that his success with the trainees stemmed from that article of clothing. Just look at how they thrive while wearing that blue shirt.
By and by, the day came for the trainer to move on to gather and strengthen more trainees. The trainees were exceedingly sad, but as they felt the strength beneath their blue shirts and remembered how to overcome the less-pump days, they realized that they were actually glad to send their trainer out to grow others into what they were becoming.
The gym that the trainer left felt a deep void and began looking for a new blue shirt trainer. Many strong, muscular, and enduring trainers were available, but they wore green, red, aquamarine, burnt-sienna, or taupe, and all their respective colors hung nicely about their shoulders and showed their strength. But no blue-shirt trainers who seemed to wear the shirt like the original blue-shirt trainer.
So eventually, the gym hired a burnt-sienna shirt trainer, but forced him to wear the blue shirt. On him, the blue shirt hung awkwardly. It concealed his strength. He became very self-conscious about the shirt's poor fit, so much so, that the shirt began to consume his every thought. He didn't eat right or work out consistently. The shirt fit worse as time went on, though it was all he ever thought about. Eventually, he was emaciated and though he had once been strong and muscular, was now entirely unfit to train others to strength and stamina.
The emaciated trainer saw the blue shirt as the source of all his problems, the gym assessed that the trainer hadn't the strength to fill the blue shirt. Some saw the blue shirt as the source of success and some saw the same shirt as the source of failure. Only the trainees had seen the real strength of the Blue-shirt trainer, AND the strength of the Burnt-Sienna shirt trainer. They were deeply saddened and confused that the Burnt-Sienna shirt trainer had sacrificed all his strength to wear the ill-fitting blue shirt. The trainees who had come along after the Blue-Shirt trainer had no idea that things were ever any different.