Free (9)

We all have influences on how to lead our lives. Friends influence the way you dress, the way you talk. Family influences your mannerisms, your decisions. But does it really have to be that way? Do they even have a say in how I should live my life? I’ve been through the phases that everyone goes through. I let my mother feed me, change me and pick out my clothes for the day. I’ve let my friends talk me into doing something unethical for the sake of being accepted. For a while, I lived my life a certain way just so I would be accepted by everyone. I’ve had beliefs that I didn’t know how to fight for [perhaps because they were not my true beliefs to begin with]. I would say things only because I knew it would please others. And yes, I’ve even been in that stage where I claim to be an “individual” only because it was the cool thing to do at the time. Why do we feel the need to conform to what others want us to be? Why is it so wrong to truly be different?

This is a pledge to myself. An oath in which I promise to be precisely what I want to be and not what everyone else wants me to be. I want to make my own decisions and reach my own sense of happiness. I want to grow up and life the life that I know will make me happy, not the life that everyone expects me to live. “She’s gonna be a doctor, someday,” “She’s gonna have the perfect family.” What if I don’t want to have some high-paying career? What if I don’t even want to have a family? Is it so wrong to seek what I truly want? If I want to have blue hair, I’m gonna have blue hair. If I want to be a tattoo artist someday, then by god, I’m gonna be a tattoo artist. This is my philosophy, now, and I plan to live by it, whether others think it is wrong or not.