“Just be yourself”. If I had a dollar for every time my mother told me this when I was younger, I’d probably be able to actually afford to go to college. It always used to sound a bit cheesy to me, a cliché like something out of one of her beloved Lifetime movies.
Perhaps this was the case because, before my sophomore year, it was very difficult advice for me to take. I’m sure this is going to surprise absolutely no one, but I was a strange, very socially awkward child in elementary and middle school. I had a dozen or so really good friends, wonderful people who will always have a special place in my heart, but without them I was quiet, reserved, and still afraid to put myself out there.
Fast forward to day one of freshman year. Apart from my nerdy little band of friends I’d made in middle school, it seemed like everyone already knew me, as “Mr. Blair’s son”.
Upperclassmen and teachers all knew my dad, even as a teacher he’s still the “big man on campus”, and the expectation was that I was his little athletic protégé (If you just laughed, you see the inherent flaw in this logic). I love my dad; he’s my inspiration and the kind of man I aspire to be, but living in his shadow was not always easy. So how do you “just be yourself” when everyone already thinks they know who you are?
And now it’s December of my sophomore year. The winter pep assembly rolls around, I get called down and placed on a stool center-court in front of 1,800 eyes, and my dad begins an unforgettable rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”. Through the words of the song that topped the charts in 1984, the message was clear: “here’s my son! I love him, and I love him enough to embarrass him.” There was no being quiet and reserved after this. Now that I was out in the open, I figured I might as well embrace it, and I finally understood what my mom meant when she said I should “just be myself”.
Suddenly, I was a lot more comfortable putting myself out there. I am a weird person, and I decided to own it. I danced crazier in band, I dressed weirder for spirit days, I got more creative when it came to class projects, and more and more became my own person (And eventually I joined theatre, and learned how to become someone else). I was no longer hiding my weirdness, and by fall of my senior year I was back on that center court, awkwardly dancing across it to Bruno Mars and Tom Jones as part of the Homecoming court.
I would not be standing here today if I didn’t heed my mom’s advice to “just be myself”, because all my weird little quirks, awkward mannerisms, and absence of athletic ability are who I am, truly and genuinely. Being that person, who I am and not what I was expected to be, has honest to God, no hyperbole, made my time at Glacier Peak the best years of my life. And now, as we are all about to go into the real world and try to change it for the better, I’d like to do two things. First, I want to sincerely thank my mom for saying something so small which has impacted my life in such a large way which cannot be overstated. And second, I want to pass on my mom’s advice to you.
“Just be yourselves”. Life needs you as you are. Each one of you has something to contribute to the world, something exceptional about yourself that’s amazing and wonderful in its own way which will make the world a better place for everyone around you. Don’t ever try to be someone you aren’t. And I know that’s not always easy. Being different when it would be so much easier to just blend in is difficult, and often really scary. But be brave. Put yourself out there, discover who you really are, find what’s unique about you and parade it around for the world to see. Be true to who you are, be wonderfully weird, and always remember to just be yourself.
Thank you.
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