Do you ever feel like you’re an outlier? That no matter how much you try you don’t quite fit in? I know I have felt that many times, that I wasn’t like everybody else. I couldn’t quite figure out why, that is, until I got older. I have come to realise that the reason I don’t feel like everybody else is because I am unlike everybody else… and now that I think about it, it’s pretty awesome.
Have you ever heard that no two snowflake is exactly alike? Well its true, each snowflake up-close is distinct and beautiful in its own way. People, like snowflakes, are each unique and distinct and have attributes that only they possess (and that means you too).
The universe doesn’t produce copies, and you may be thinking “yeah right, tell that to my identical twin”, but if you really think about it there so many differences between even identical twins… everything and everyone has something different and special about them.
Seriously, every person’s fingerprints, DNA, perspectives, physical capabilities, talents, and personalities are different. It can be kind of hard to believe, especially when it feels like society is trying to make us into cardboard cutouts of each other, but really that is only superficial. Even if we try to conform or fit in, even if we try to maintain the status quo… it’s pretty impossible… because we would be defying nature.
Because we have this beautiful gift of uniqueness, we have the ability to express it in a way that no one else can. Because we are unique we can have creative thoughts and innovations that no-one else has thought, thoughts and ideas that only belong to us.
This means that you should embrace who you are, and embrace your uniqueness. Do something that no one else can do, make a difference that no one else can, be yourself… because seriously, why try to be like someone else?
Think your own thoughts and speak your own truth… because in doing so you are doing something pretty special. Take the road less travelled, the road that is perfect for you. By doing so you are being you.
I leave you with a beautiful classic poem by the brilliant Robert Frost that has inspired my writing today.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference