You Don’t Have to Do What Everyone Else is Doing

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that your words flutter nervously across the page in anxious anticipation of acceptance. I can see the dilating pupil of uncertainty starring back at me, for you have let others define you. It’s not enough that you wear societies clothing, listen to its music, read its books and regurgitate its ignorance, but you even let it define who you are. When you do gather the courage to be yourself it is not long before you are already planning on how to take your words back, erase them into the dungeon of nothingness. Some of you climb inside of yourself and turn off the lights, over there praying for invisibility and trying not to be you. Why do you cloak yourself in darkness? Always skating timidly through life as if the next step will be the one to shatter the ground. Always apologetic for the way in which you see the world as if your purpose in life is one big mistake. If you have passion, stand by it. You owe no one an explanation. It doesn’t matter what we struggle with on a daily, it always helps when we are ourselves. Despite the mistakes we make being transparent is the only way to transcend and to overcome. In that process, remind yourself that you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. Besides, “if you don’t define yourself for yourself you’ll be crushed into other people’s fantasies of you and eaten alive.” – Andre Lorde