Ever wake up and wish you were more like someone else? Wish you didn’t care so much about what other people thought, wish you more intelligent, musically talented, creative, or just wish you were someone else entirely? Well don’t; because as the great and wise James Fenimore Cooper once said, “All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man that has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.”

My very best friend, McKenzie McClure, is a perfect example of a person who accepts herself and doesn’t worry about what other people think in the slightest degree. She says what she’s thinking when she’s thinking it, wears what she wants how she wants to and doesn’t think twice about it. I really admire her for that; she’s my hero.

It is very sad, but still true that the majority of people nowadays are overly concerned with fitting in. They focus almost exclusively on superficial things like clothes, shoes, and their popularity status. For example being “punk” has become a really big thing. Kids put on a pair of Chuck’s, a vintage tee and call themselves “hard-core”. While in actuality, “punk” is a music genre, not an old tee shirt and pair of shoes.

They posses such a strong desire to fit in, and be one of the ‘cool kids’, it often causes them to do strange things out of their usual character. These things can be good or bad, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Usually what happens however is, instead of growing from these experiences and interactions with new kinds of people, most, in their drive to become like the ‘cool kids’, they kill all that was uniquely them and become just another melodramatic, consumer driven, lemming: individuality no longer an issue.

For instance, there’s a particularly popular girl in my school (who shall remain nameless) who has a growing number of girls imitating her every move. She is a cheerleader and a dancer, she’s blonde, and wears only the brands Abercrombie and Fitch as well as American Eagle and Gap; and for what reason, I am still not sure why, in their desire to fit in with her and her ‘popular’ group, people who I once admired for their individuality and style have completely changed.

They first begin their transformation by dying their hair blonde, joining cheer, and buying the above mentioned brands. Eventually ending with snubbing off all of their old friends and adding themselves to the swarm of girls all exactly alike. I’m not sure if they’re happy with who they’ve become or if they’re more lost as a person than when they started; but one thing I do notice, they lose everything that once was them and become nearly an exact copy of that certain popular girl mentioned earlier, no longer an individual.

So while you may be tempted to try and change yourself to ‘fit in’ with a certain group, keep in mind that no matter what clothes you have on, no matter how popular you are, it means nothing if you don’t stay true to yourself. The passion for living life the way you want to live it is what makes you uniquely you; and you should never let anyone make you feel that the price for being yourself means you can’t be liked; so live better than yesterday, live for the joy of living, and dare to be more like yourself.