Be you! Everyone else is taken. That’s just facts. But the reality is we want to be anybody other than ourselves. If you’re a loud personality you want to be quiet. If you work in sales you want to work in sports etc. 

But the fact is that no one has ever done things the way you do ever before in human history. The way you served that customer, or closed the deal, or failed and rebounded. You are one of a kind. 

The truth is at any point in time you are the best or the worst version of yourself you ever were. And you are the best you to ever to exist in human history… or the worst. 

It depends on your perspective. 

I am a loud personality, both growing up and now. I’m from Mauritian descent and that makes me cheeky, a larrikin. But in my formative years I wanted to be anything but. As an introvert masquerading as an extrovert it was really difficult to make the two worlds work together. 

I would enter many a situation with an internal dialogue of ‘just be still and silent’ but I would first open my mouth and I was off to the races. Don’t get me wrong I can be the life of any gathering. But I can also be annoying, and ‘weird.’ 

I even tried to model myself off characters that were brooding like Batman and Luke Skywalker (Return of the Jedi). But the fact is that jokers are wild and so am I. 

Growing up I was made aware of an unofficial poll taken on who was the most likely to be on drugs. And I won it in a landslide having never taken an illegal drug in my life. I was just weird. 

I was crushed. Part of my nature growing up is I wanted everyone to love me. The fact that people thought that was crushing. 

But being weird is my superpower.  The more I entered into my adulthood the more I realised to be an outlier not a commodity was a good thing. Where for school you had to fit in, in adulthood being different is a good thing. It’s not vanilla, it has more nuts in it. Like a rocky road. 

So my words to anyone who is struggling with their nature. Be you! Everyone else is taken. 

I was hypersensitive as a kid, and as an adult though not as sensitive, I am still affected by people that are critical of me. I still have situations that I am embarrassed about from my past replaying in my head ala the TripleDent gum commercial from “Inside Out.” 

But the fact is, I can only be me. I have calmed a bit as I am middle aged but my nature is still to be loud when interacting with people I know. And I have more of an understanding that I am an acquired taste and not everyone has to like me. Because I can only be me. 

Does it still hurt when people call me weird. Yes! To this day it still hurts. But I can’t change the fundamentals of who I am. I am me. I have a good heart and when I fall I get back up and always want to be better.  Just like failure events, the fall isn’t as bad and it builds resilience.

So if you’re young and happen to read this. Things will get better. If you have a good heart. You will be the best version of you at any point in time if you choose to see that. Even when you experience a failure event. 

Because a monarch who loses their crown is still regal, it’s who they are that counts.