The Bitch About Being Yourself
So I said that I was going to post this a while ago, but I kept forgetting to send it to myself from school. Anyway, here it is, The Bitch About Being Yourself:
When we were children, we were ourselves. It did not matter what anyone else thought; we did what we desired, what we thought was right. But as we grew, we began to change, and some of our comrades lost their unique personality along the way. We were warned, but never expected it to happen. Some of our comrades had succumbed to the many forms of peer pressure, their originality lost. As the years passed by, more and more of us fell, we were now in the minority. Now, as I look around my junior class, there are but a handful of independent individuals left. Lucky enough for me, I now know who these people are.
Middle school was an awkward time for me. As I entered, I lost my good friends as they flocked to more mainstream interests. I was lost and alone, and I didn’t know where to turn. While this friendless period was sad, it was time I took to find myself and reestablish who exactly I was.
While others became more self conscious during their middle school years, looking more closely at fashion, thinking more about what they would say and more importantly what people would think, I learned that I didn’t need to spend days at the mall perfecting my wardrobe, I learned that speaking my mind was better for both myself and others, hiding what you really feel only hurts people later on when they find out your true thoughts. By not speaking your mind you are lying to yourself and the people you love.
As my middle school career hit the halfway point I had found who I was, and I decided that was the only person I was going to be. I vowed for that point forward to let no person’s opinion change who I was. I followed through with it, I was myself, but I remained friendless. I realized that this was not because I was myself, but because I wasn’t everybody else.
It’s not that I was disliked for my newfound values and the actions that sparked from them, but because others were afraid to associate with me. While I was being myself, they were preoccupied with satisfying others expectations first, above their own. I didn’t really understand all of this until this year. I appeared as an intimidating figure in the eyes of others, often times I came off as egotistical. Being myself was rubbing some people the wrong way. I often became frustrated, crying myself to sleep some nights because nobody cared to understand me.
Towards the end of my freshman year this began to change. I was blessed enough to cross the paths of several people like myself. These people, who took the time to learn about me, became a support system; they were firmly connected to me. As we became closer not only did I learn from them, but they learned from me as well. Because of our nature we accepted each other, even though our backgrounds were significantly different. One of the most important lessons we all learned from each other, or rather a lesson we already knew but confirmed through each other, was to never stop being yourself. If someone cannot accept you for who you are, then they do not deserve to know you in the first place.
Often times I speak to a close friend about rejecting people. And while we don’t care so much for these people’s opinions, we still have a difficult time understanding why they act the way they do towards us. During our conversations we contemplate why anyone would act in such a way towards anyone, especially without knowing them. Again, it’s an intimidation thing; there is something about us they fear just because we are free thinkers.
People often pass judgment about me without even having met me. I recall someone who was in the same class as me once, I was never introduced to but for some reason he just hated me from day one. He was not the only person to ever pass judgment; while my math teacher claimed to have a perfect attendance record, we were somehow in the presence of a substitute teacher. While checking in homework the substitute stumbled over a backpack, she immediately turned to me and demanded an apology. At first thought I was ready to let the matter go, but she insisted I apologize until finally the owner of the backpack came forward. Still willing to let the matter go, on account of her insanity, I thought she would just move on and badger the true owner. But then she went back to her desk, she let it go. She was somehow attracted to me, my out of control hair and my somewhat distressed clothing, but as soon as someone possibly more appealing to her suddenly almost took her life, she lets it go. How could this happen, how is anyone like this even in the teaching profession is all I could think after this. I still see this everyday, maybe not from teachers but it still hurts; walking down the hall I find many people glaring at me with a look that questions what the hell is he doing.
While it is true that some people dislike me after getting to know me, I don’t understand people who refuse to get to know you. Their shallowness is really disgusting. But it is that very shallowness that drives me to break them, to change them in any way I can, from the brutal beasts that they are.
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