Just Try To Be Like Everybody Else

          To a high school kid like myself, concepts like "be yourself," "don't follow the crowd," and "be unique" are nothing new. I'm encouraged from people on the outside to do just that.  The words "try to blend in" and "act a little more normal" don't usually come from anyone but myself.  People don't just say that to me.  Sometimes it's a disapproving glance or an annoyed roll of the eyes.  The words aren't there, but I can still feel them.  It's alright though, they're old news. This isn't what's bothering me. 
        What's new and strange is hearing the words out loud--

"Try to be like everybody else." "Why can't you act normal?" "Just do what everyone else is doing!!"

They weren't said to me, otherwise they may have had a different effect.  But I actually heard someone say that.  And not just an arrogant classmate or misinformed kid, either; I heard a mother say that to her son.  Now before we go judging her, she was just trying to get him to stop goofing off and obey the coach at the basketball practice I was helping out with earlier this week.  Nevertheless, hearing those phrases really made me think.  I was shocked for a while, and I probably stared at her.  Telling your kid to act like everyone else? Are you serious?  What happened to being yourself?
            By combining these two concepts, we get, "be yourself, unless other people are better, then be them."  It sounds terrible, but isn't that the world we live in?  Don't follow the crowd, but if you're not successful at the right things, you should probably change.
            So for the last few days I've been asking myself questions like these: "Are you being yourself, or just the yourself that others think you should be?" "Can you be any more you?" "What if we were all just like everybody else, what if no one's different?"  I think the last question is the scariest of them all.
           We are, in many ways, just like everyone else.  We all, at least for a while, struggle with being ourselves.  So maybe if you're the kind of person who's still sorting his own "yourself" out from all the "everyone elses," just think of the things you like best about yourself, and do more of what makes you yourself, whether everyone else is their self that way or not.  Do what you do best, but try to learn the things that make you a better person.  Who is a better person anyways? Perhaps that's something you'll have to decide for yourself.  I don't know about you, but the people who I think are great certainly don't go around trying to act more and more normal every day.
-Kelly L.

Play It Safe

Watch out for the darkness

Banish the unknowns

Run away from danger

And never leave your home

Don't let curiosity overcome you:

Unfamiliar, New, Nameless, Mysterious, Strange

Hide from the indefinite

Stay inside your comfort zone

But as you peer out from your window

Don't be surprised if you're alone.

-Kelly L.

2/22/13

Hello Friend,
Join me on my adventures? alright cool, thanks.  We've got the world to see, so let's go!