“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde.
31.08.2017
I found this post whilst looking through my drafts and just thought it was a waste not to post! Hope you enjoy it.
If somebody asked me what the most important thing I have learnt about life so far, I would tell them that it’s before even thinking about anybody else, you have to be happy with who you are.
A few years ago, while I was still at school/sixth form I cared far too much about what people thought about me. I know I wasn’t alone in this. When you’re a teenager it feels like that the most important thing in your life is to be accepted. Instead of basing my decisions on what I wanted, I based them on how people would react to them. This was true for trivial decisions like what clothes I would wear to school, as well as bigger ones. I was constantly aware of other peoples opinions, and would often choose not to say things that were on my mind because I was scared of what people would think.
Now I’ve realised that I honestly could not care less about what other people think of me.
I’ve realised that the only person who really has to be happy with the way I am, is me. Other people come in and out of your life, and whilst some may be a permanent fixture, at the end of the day you will always be left with yourself. And how on earth are you supposed to be happy with yourself if you don’t even know who you really are. If you try to please other people and ‘fit in’ your whole life, then you lose part of yourself. Trying to hide your true self is stupid, because there is no way you could keep up the act forever. And why would you even want to? If you change aspects of who you are to make people like you, then if you think about it, they don’t really like you. They like the image of you that you’ve chosen to portray. It’s scary to be yourself because then if people don’t like you then you don’t have the excuse of ‘well they don’t really know me’. But surely it’s better to have some people dislike you then have people like a fake version of yourself? As Kurt Cobain said ‘I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not’.
It took me a long time to realise that I didn’t need to care about what other people thought of me. I used to have to ask myself all the time ‘What would you do right now if you didn’t care what other people would think of you’. Now it comes as second nature to me to do things without worrying about what other people think. I have some great friends, and a great family who love me for exactly who I am. They love that weird girl who is always reading, and asks the strangest questions because she just wants to know everything about everything. I now have friends that I can have any conversation with, from politics, to discussing the meaning of life, to whether I should buy that new lipstick I wanted. And my friends feel the same way about me. We know that we can ask each other anything without fear of being judged.
I know for a fact that I could never have started a blog back in secondary school. I would have been far too scared to put any of my own thoughts out there where anyone could read them. Now it’s one of my favourite things to do. I love telling people my opinions on anything and everything. I know that a lot of people won’t care or will disagree with me, but this doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m not saying I don’t feel a little bit apprehensive whenever I post on here or feel self conscious around new people. Because I do, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change, it’s a fact of life that you’re going to want to be liked. But it’s not overwhelming anymore, I don’t NEED people to like me. It’s just nice when they do.
Until next time my angels,
Aimee x
The Life of an Aspiring Writer 