What I Really Learned in High School

Be yourself. But not too much yourself.

Every day we are encouraged to "be ourselves". To "be original". To put aside other's judgments and focus solely on our own. We must learn to love ourselves before others will loves us.

And yet, even so, there is a silent force driving us to "fit in". We tell ourselves we are original.
We tell ourselves we don't care what others think. But we are all just lying to ourselves to keep us from a hurtful reality.

I have had countless epiphanies where I realize that as long as I accept myself, it doesn't matter what others think of me, as I am sure many others have had. And yet every. Single. Time. The feeling goes away. Where does it go? Who knows. No one ever explicitly said "You have to put others opinions of you ahead of your own." But we all understand it to be true. Why else would someone pay $100 for a pair of jeans, or wear uncomfortable clothes, or poke themselves in the eyes with contacts every day because they "look prettier" that way?

I am an individual. I try to be myself. But no matter how self-loving you are, no matter how confident you are, there will always, always be a little alarm that goes off in your head when you feel like you're being too "weird". Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, to some degree, cares what others think. Maybe not a lot. But we all want one thing: acceptance. So we find a group, settle in, and camouflage. Watch movies we don't really care about because they're "cool". Read books we don't really care about because all our friends are.

And now I am going to contradict everything I just said because that's how weird and biased society is.

We are ostracized for being different.

But we are ostracized for being too "fake".

We can't win.

So be yourself.

Just not too yourself.