Being YOU is better than being someone else

Being You is better than being someone else

February 21, 2026

I was raised in a household that drew a clear line between right and wrong. It’s right to show kindness to others. It’s wrong to show hate. It’s right to work hard for what you want. It’s wrong to take shortcuts and expect success. Growing up, I believed that these are the guidelines everyone followed. A universal expectation of the human race. Now that I am older I can see how naive I once was. Not everyone operates this way, in fact, most people do not. We have each created a personal set of morals based on our own thoughts and feelings. Now this is a very broad and general concept. However, I feel that it’s the underlying foundation to an issue in mass media today: We can not always please everyone, and those we can’t please, often have something to say about it.

We are told to adapt to our surroundings, to change colors like a gecko in order to fit in. “Don’t wear that shirt, it’s too ‘boyish’” they say. “Those shoes make your feet look too big” they say. “You can’t wear skinny jeans, they’re so out of style” they say. Yet, no matter how hard you try, no matter how many colors you paint yourself, it’s simply never enough. There is someone in this world that will always have something to say, something to criticize. I think that our tendency to judge others and impose our perspectives on them comes from the personal moral codes we have created for ourselves.

I guess in the bigger picture, my point here is that we’ve implemented so many rules and so much judgment into our daily lives that no one feels like they can be their authentic selves. If you try to fit in, you’re labeled a “try hard”, but if you do your own thing, you’re labeled “too much”. You will never be able to please everyone. So I think you should stop trying to. It feels like a double-edged sword, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. My question for you is this: how far are you willing to go in stripping yourself of everything that makes you you, in order to fit into a mold not made for you.