Accept Yourself Exactly As You Are

This is going to be a little bit more serious than what you usually see on the blog, but I want this written out. The blog is kind of my vice.

So, a little background information. I went to summer school for three weeks over the summer. Not because I didn't pass a class, but because at the school that I was going to go to before we moved, you have to take summer school. It is completely required or you won't get the credits that you need to graduate. So anyway, I saw this girl (our moms used to be friends) that I had gone to school with until I had switched schools in fourth grade. She had become popular. And gorgeous. And I walked into school everyday feeling so... down about myself, because no matter how hard I tried, I looked nothing like her. She was tall, I'm average height. She was super thin, and I'm average. She had long, blonde hair, I had shoulder-length brown hair.

She hung out with a bunch of her friends, and I was all alone. Everyone that I used to know that goes there, had their own friends that I had never met before. I only knew one person in my class, and we hung out during class, but when it was time for break she hung out with her other friends. She didn't do anything wrong, I would've hung out with my friends if I were her too.

Eventually I saw some people that I knew from before, it was a little awkward at first but towards the end it was better. So, three weeks later, summer school was over, and my aunt and cousin came to visit. It was then that we decided to move to where they lived.

I'm getting off topic here. Anyway, last night, the pretty, popular girl asked to follow me on Instagram. I accepted, and requested her. And then I did something that I am so ashamed of. I went through and screenshotted, then deleted about 50 pictures, just so I would seem cool. And so she would look at my profile and all of my pictures and think that I was "cool". Yeah.

And I mean, I totally feel better now that she won't see any bad pictures of me, or billions of pictures of my dogs, but... I also feel like maybe I shouldn't have done that. I'm not really sure what the right decision was. Because my nervousness about her thinking that I was "cool" has been replaced by feeling... almost ashamed of myself. I promised myself I would never change anything so that someone would think that I'm cool.

But then I saw a blog post today, and I feel better. Even though the post was saying to accept yourself the way you are on the inside, I feel better. I feel better because I might be accepting the fact that I deleted some of my Instagram pictures because I wanted someone to think I was cool. I think that I have accepted the fact that I have done this, and it's something that I need to work on with myself, not caring what other people think.

Yesterday, again, I was wearing a shirt that had skulls and roses on it. And I felt like this old man kept giving me dirty looks because of it. But why did I care what this old man thought? Why did it matter to me whether or not he thought my shirt was horrible? It shouldn't have.

So today? I want all of you, every single last one of you, to accept yourself. On the inside. I don't care if you still want to lose that 20 pounds or grow your hair out. I want you to accept yourself as a person, your personality. Because you are all beautiful and you are all doing something to change the world. Whether it be by impacting one person, which in turn impacts another person, and starting a chain or by impacting a whole bunch of people at one time. You are all doing something to change the world for the better.

Accept yourself exactly as you are.

I'm proud of you. Thank you for making the world a better place, you are so important. The world won't change without you. Please, please believe me.

"We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone."

-Ronald Reagan