Fit In or Stand Out?

One thing that i have learned over the past couple years is to BE YOURSELF! i know it sounds super cheesy and everyone says it, but there is a reason why everyone says it because IT IS TRUE! when i started my high school years i was so scared to be different and to be judged, i wanted to be normal and fit in and have people like me. I ended up not having very many friends and the people i was friends with weren’t what i was looking for in friends.

At the start of my grade 10 year i wanted to make a change….so i did. i left my old friends and started to hangout with other people! this was very hard to do because everyone already found their group of friends in grade 9.

So seeing how everyone else was acting and dressing i tried to be like them and guess what?! i became friends with them. OMG i got what i wanted right?!?! WRONG! i was just there, i wasn’t the person people liked to talk too, i was always the "back-up" person people would go to if nobody else was around! It made me really sad and depressed and i became even more self conscious about myself and how i was acting because i wondered WHY people weren’t talking to me. i mean i was acting and dressing like everyone and couldn’t understand why nobody really liked me or invited me to hangout… :(

In the start of grade 11 i still WASNT happy! :( i wasn’t happy with who i was and how people treated me so i finally said F*CK IT! and started acting how i wanted too. I started not giving a shit about what other people thought about my hair, clothing etc. I wasn’t trying to please people or be friends with everyone.

So I started sharing my opinion in conversation and not just agreeing with everyone else’s, like i did all my life. i started to become more welcome and people actually started talking to me first and inviting me to hangout. (Not saying that i get invited to a lot of things because i don’t) but I’m still changing and becoming ME!

And now we get to the present time more than half way through grade 11 and i have more friends than i had at the start of high school, even at the start of grade 10, and the BIGGEST thing is that I’m HAPPY with who i am and who my friends are! they accept me for who i am! (I’m not saying that I’m totally popular and have invites all the time cause, again, i DONT.) i still kind of have anxiety and I’m socially awkward with people, but I’m getting better and have started working on that part of my life!

I guess the main point I’m trying to get across is that don’t be afraid to BE YOURSELF! don’t care what other people think (especially in high school cause its only 4 years of your life) Don’t get caught up in trying to fit in cause you WONT BE HAPPY! I’m much happier than I’ve been in a very, very long time and its all because I finally MADE a CHOICE! to be HAPPY!