It’s a shame people can’t actually act like individuals anymore. Too many people follow the masses like mindless sheep waiting for slaughter. Well it depends, if you are “cool” you can be yourself but if you veer off from that realm, being yourself is no longer okay. So many people in the world today put on this persona of someone their not. The first day of college I met these two people who would be considered the typical “meat head” jocks. I know the term “jock” is cliché but that is the best word I can think of to describe them as people. So when I first met these two individuals they liked me a lot and then once they found out I was “different” from them, meaning I didn’t have the same beliefs as they did, they immediately stopped inviting …show more content…
me to places and excluded me from their little group. I still hang out with them every blue moon and I noticed something. When I act like them and put on this front of being someone I’m not, they like me. When I act like myself, they don’t. Funny how that works. Being yourself in this world seems to be the ultimate crime. Might as well arrest me and throw me in prison for being myself nowadays. I remember the time when I went out with the two individuals the first day of college. We went out to a party that night and before the party, there is an even called the “Pre-game”. The pre-game is when you chill at someone’s house and pop a few shots before you get to the party. During the pre-game one of my teammates offered me a shot of some Fireball liquor. I looked at him and said, “I don’t drink.” His response was, “No way, so you are telling me you have never drank before?” I nodded my head, and he just couldn’t believe it. He says, “You are in college and you have never drank before! Well, that’s all about to change tonight.” I refused to take the shot and he went on this whole spiel about how college is the time to party and have fun. Lately I’ve been trying to find “myself”, but all along “myself” is exactly who I really am. There have been so many times when I just wanted to conform and fit in. The first day of college when I went out that night, I wanted to just take a few shots, so I could just blend in with the crowd instead of having the spotlight on me. Being yourself can be a lonely road for some people, I know it has been for me. Most people just don’t like me for whatever reason. I’m not rude or anything like that, but I am a straight forward person. For the most part I tell it “how it is” and most people just hate that. One time there was this nice dude that I met one day. This dude for some reason was so pressed to be my friend. He would always show up and pop up out of nowhere and would try to talk to me. It’s like he had an all seeing eye, knowing where I was at all times. It was very creepy to be honest. One day he did his usual stalker approach on me and before he could even say “Hey”, I told him “Look, your cool and everything, but I don’t like how you are constantly trying to buddy-buddy with me and I barely know you. It’s creepy so I would like it if you stopped trying to talk to me 24/7.” That rubbed him the wrong way, and he never talked to me again. They say “the truth hurts” and it really does but hearing the truth is a lot better than finding out someone was lying to you just so your feelings weren’t hurt. I remember when I told the two meat head jocks that I listened to Kid Cudi one day and they said, “You really listen to Kid Cudi, he is horrible.” The funny thing is they said it at the exact same time because they are the biggest butt buddies in Boulder.
The two are inseparable, they are like two sticks glued together. But when they said Kid Cudi was horrible, I responded with, “What are you talking about, Kid Cudi is the G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time).” Their reply was “This dude is a faggot”. Yes, they used the term faggot, like we are all grown men but they were using middle school terminology to offend me. When they said this I clenched my fist in frustration in left the …show more content…
premises. My whole life I have never been the person that has been liked by everyone, I’ve always had a few people that really enjoyed my company and a lot of people that were, lack of a better term, “haters”. My whole life I’ve always been the guy that people just love to mess with. Back in high school, junior year to be exact, we would have these roasting sessions. A roasting session is when you make fun of someone for the flaws that they have. Imagine being in the cafeteria with a huge circle of people making fun of each other, that’s what a roasting session is in a nutshell. The roasting session was voluntary, so I wanted to roast people and catch the roast, I knew what was coming. For some reason though, everyone in the roasting circle always wanted to roast me, I don’t know why but it was like I was Zeus on Mt. Olympus and if they could deliver a solid roast to me, they would win the greatest prize under the sun. When I say everyone wanted to roast me, I mean everyone, and at that moment I knew I was different. I’ve always felt like a leaf drifting away on an autumn day just trying to find my place in this world.
But what I realized was, this entire time, I was being myself. I never conformed to what everyone liked, I always remained myself because that is the best way to live life. I’ve always wore the exquisite long tees with jean cut-offs I wanted to wear. I’ve always hung around the chill people who aren’t afraid to be different and don’t care what others think of them. I’ve just recently considered my uniqueness as a blessing instead of a curse. It’s a lot better being around a few like-minded people that actually like you than being acquaintances with hundreds of people that you are putting a front on for. At that moment I embraced that fact that I traveled down the lonely road less traveled. The road of being yourself and doing the things that you like and doing the things that make you happy. Life is a lot better when you aren’t trying to be something that you are
not. I’ve come a long way with the whole “being myself” thing. It is hard to be an individual in a society that encourages you to think inside of a box like everyone else. That is why the people in the top 1% control everything, most people are followers instead of leaders. What I once thought was a bad thing turned out to be a good thing after all, so now I embrace the few friends I have and lack of popularity in my life because at the end of the day I’m being myself playing Fifa and NBA 2K while jamming to Kid Cudi with the small circle of chill, non-judgmental people I have in my life.
I have you, my friends. You who look out for me, yet allow me to be myself. Eat cheesecake, drink a beer, run barefoot through the grass—and enjoy it! I know that my life could be much worse. We all know that. Thank you for listening to me bitch about my world. I’ve needed to for a long time. Now let me return to being one of you. After all, I’m just another classmate, another student, another stranger on the street.
It was after I had lost someone in my life that was my other half. I didn’t understand who I was, what my purpose was, what made me who I am. As far as I was concerned I was reduced to nothing more than an individual that was now alone. I didn’t realize that my identity was partly crafted from simply just being by their side all the time, that whenever I was introduced to someone, or was talking to mutuals about them, I was known for being their best friend. After the fiasco that became the end of our relationship, I felt as if I was just floating through the days and nights. This feeling went on for about 2 months until I slowly came out of it. I didn’t experience a grand epiphany of any sort that inspired me to change myself. I was painting and listening to music and the thought just slowly came to me. I love to paint, and I love listening to and creating and playing music. I began to gain back my sense of identity by engaging in activities I loved. I’m a painter, a musician, a writer, a passionate lover of movies. I’ve learned that identity can isn’t set in stone, there’s always room for
A large majority of teens want to fit in and feel like they belong, but how far are they willing to go to fit in? The more they want to fit in the more likely they will be easily influenced by suggestions from others. During my second week of eighth grade, I felt like I wasn’t fitting in and that everyone was silently judging me and criticizing me. Of course now that I think about I don’t think anyone really cared about me, but I was more self-conscious about myself then. One day during lunch my friends and I sat next to a couple of girls who were known as the “popular” girls and I thought that maybe I would fit in more if I was friends with them. I spent the rest of that lunch hour trying to build up the courage to talk to them and at last minute I told the friendliest looking girl, that I loved her shirt and I asked her what store she bought it from. She told me that it was from Free People; she then gushed about the store and told me how everything there was amazing. She suggested that I should check it out sometime so I did. I, of course couldn’t wait to shop there. I told myself that if I shopped at Free People, I could maybe fit in with her and even be a part of the popu...
After having a self-reflection of myself I realized that I wanted to be distinctive, I wanted to reconstruct the way I was living. I was tired of just the same repetitive schedule that I followed in high school. I would get up at six twenty in the morning which was the perfectly set time that I determined was necessary to complete my morning routine. I would then head to school which I went through the same repetitive schedule as the previous day. Then I would travel back home consume whatever was prepared by my mother, play some videogames for hours then tend to my my homework and finally head to bed to repeat another average day. It was until one day one of my friend invited me to go to the gym with him. He took me to the gym which was not too far away from my school and lead me to the doorway to bodybuilding. It was just after a couple of
Have you ever felt left out? Have you ever wished you seemed cooler or you were as cool as “those
What does it mean to cook the perfect steak? There are numerous methods and opinions how this is achieved, but what it boils down to is an opinion, your opinion. My definition of the perfect steak might vary from most, but to me is heaven on earth. Yes, I said heaven, but eating it is not the only enjoyable part, depending on the person, cooking it can can be quite entertaining as well. Luckily for me, I am one of those people that enjoy the entire process that goes in to making these masterpieces granted to us from the one above. Therefore, because my mouth is beginning to salivate from giving such a long introduction, I will begin. First, you want to head down to your local butcher or supermarket that sells quality meat. When selecting my cut of meat, the selection process is one of many intricacies, and any
I had always been comfortable in myself, it never really bothered me how I looked, nor did it seem to bother others, the people who I called friends. As I walked through the door somehow it was as if, overnight I was expected to wear clothes that I felt awkward in (but still looked cute), shoes that hurt my feet, and makeup that clogged my already full pores. I was met with grins and giggles from others. I caught tidbits of what they were saying.
I started wearing what I wanted and not just what was popular. I didn’t have close connections with my friends at the time either. Most of them gossiped all the time, and that’s just not me. I had been stuck in my shell for way too long in fears of being an outcast. The first day of trying to come out of my shell I was made fun of, but I didn’t care near as much as I thought I would. These people are making jokes about me but don’t have any clue who I am, what I’ve been through, or what my future holds. So why even give them the time of day? I kept on wearing what I wanted and actually made life-long friends who were into the same things as I was. It does not matter what you wear or how you look honestly. The only thing that should matter is what’s inside of you, and you shouldn’t be discouraged to express that in fears of someone not liking you. “Those who matter don’t mind, those that mind don’t matter” (Theodore Suess Geisel.)
Growing up, I always felt out of place. When everyone else was running around in the hot, sun, thinking of nothing, but the logistics of the game they were playing. I would be sat on the curb, wondering what it was that made them so much different from me. To me, it was if they all knew something that I didn’t know, like they were all apart of some inside joke that I just didn’t get. I would sit, each day when my mind wasn’t being filled with the incessant chatter of my teachers mindlessly sharing what they were told to, in the hot, humid air of the late spring and wonder what I was doing wrong. See, my discontent
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.” – Eleanor Roosevelt. These are some very wise and empowering words, I must say. I believe many teenagers in today’s generation are most of the time wearing a mask. A mask that is made up of what the world wants them to be, a mask that they think may protect them from not allowing others in, a mask that was built from peer pressure, a mask that was formed from bullying. There’s always a story behind someone’s mask, as I call it. Most of the time teens nowadays are afraid to be themselves, to be individuals, due to the way they think people will perceive them. I do have to say though, that those that have ripped their masks away are the ones that have truly become individuals. Of course,
An essential journey occurred three years ago when I set out on a personal pilgrimage. I wanted to re-travel the time line of the past few years and locate the point where I had allowed the influence of others to determine my own concept of self. "Self" is not necessarily complex or intricate, but it does define the character of a person and how he or she wants to be viewed. In my own rush to "fit in" at college I had disregarded what I needed and complacently accepted the definitions of others. I expended my energy trying to model myself according to the contemplation of my peers, all the while ignoring principles which I felt were inherent to my survival. Once the missing feeling of singularity is discovered, an individual must set out upon a journey and reconstruct the notions of self and identity. Understanding my own needs, I decided to embark on a solo expedition into the woods of Maine.
Anybody that knows me knows that my passion and goals in life have to deal with fashion. If I could be anything in this world I would love to be a designer of some sort or at least be in the industry. When it comes to clothing and style it just comes easy one of the easiest things I’m good at. Fashion is an art form it allows you to express your view on style anyway you choose. And to me I feel like nobody has the right to judge that. Style hasn’t always come easy to be though just like everything else it takes time and practice it’s still a work in progress. When I look back to my middle school and early high school years I wonder deeply about my choices, middle school had to have been the worst. I was going through a colored jeans faze, I would wear bright yellow, honey mustard yellow, sky blue, purple, and pink. If somebody were to name a color I probably had jeans that color. It gets worse though because I would have the worst possible combination choice of shoes to go along with a matching bead necklace and bracelet set, followed by a grey or navy blue uniform shirt. It’s clear I had no idea what I was doing the best part is I was being myself and that’s all that matters. No matter how much I think my style has grown I’m only human and will look back and probably wonder why I wore the outfit I’m wearing sitting here writing this essay.
I Spent so much time worried about the social standards my peers set i never had the time to even really find what i enjoy. i lost out on hobbies, opportunities, and a lot of fun because i thought it would be looked down upon. Then one day a new girl came to my school. she looked, spoke, and acted ...
Firstly, I now know that it’s okay to be interested in different things and to want to venture down a new path. There is nothing wrong with being alone in something because if it’s something you enjoy then it shouldn’t matter whatsoever. If I had followed my friend into things she enjoyed instead of things I was interested in, I wouldn’t have grown into who I am now. My empowerment in student council allowed me to receive multiple scholarships and gain the leadership experience that I travel with today. I feel that this was a personal challenge which allowed me to see my own potential. Secondly, I learned that it is okay for change to occur. Once I had created an attachment to my best friend, it was hard for me to understand the small-scale change we were undergoing. This lesson allowed me to make a connection with an article we read called How Friendships Change in Adulthood, written by Julie Beck. Beck discusses the hierarchy of relationships as peoples ages increase, and unfortunately friendships falls towards the bottom. She explains that during adolescence, there’s a lot more self-disclosure and support between friends, but they’re still trying to discover their personal identity. William Rawlins states that the unfortunate part of this is, “In adolescence, people have a really retractable self. They’ll change,” (Beck, 2016). Although Beck also notes that young adults have time to devote to their friends, they’re constantly changing. By growing up and moving onto bigger things, such as grade school to high school, our networks are also growing. This allows for them to experience new things and get to know new people (Beck, 2016). I feel that this is exactly what happened between Makayla and I. Thankfully, now I know that without change, there is no room for new knowledge or adventure. I believe that this allowed my attitude and behaviour to take on a more positive and confident role in
I now know myself. I know that I am Megan Benson. I will be an early high-school graduate and a college student this year. I know that I will be a freshman at Northwest Missouri State University studying Animal Science and Business Management. I know that I am a mom. Which is the greatest title of them all. I am responsible for the life of my daughter and I will better myself every single day to give her and my family a better future. I know that I am the girlfriend of Sean, someone who helped me find myself when I did not think it was possible. I know that I am a better me and that I do not need to fit in anywhere because I have a family who knows me for my true identity and would not want me any other way. I know that this was just a bump in the road and I overcame it.