Born This Way: beautiful

You.

What is there more important than my own self? NOTHING!

This is the question that you have to ask yourself everyday, whenever you feel insecure or whether you have the feeling of not fitting in. YOU have to think about yourself FIRST, then the rest. This is a very general statement but it is the basis for everything in the world. Whatever makes you happy or sad, will always start from the above question.

Have you ever been excluded from a group? Therefore, have you ever tried to 'fit in' a group? Did you arrive to the point of changing your personality (a.k.a. everything about yourself) because the feeling of not being accepted was stronger than "taking care of yourself"? If the answers to all these questions are "yes" then you are extremely wrong on everything.

People always try to write lectures on how to behave in certain situations or how to act in front of people you want to impress, but I will not explain this here. I want to try and make you think about the topic, with the use of other media devices that have great influence on our minds.

Music. Everyone listens to it. Music is everywhere and in every language. We listen to music from all around the world. But do we just listen to it or do we also pay attention to it?

Lets start off by saying that when we fall in love with a particular music artist we start analyzing in depth the music, and especially the lyrics (well.. at least I do this for sure :) ). I payed attention to many singers present on my playlist and I have come to a conclusion: their lyrics tell stories. Sometimes these might be real and sometimes they may just be dreams of fantasies. Many people have now chosen to express themselves throughout music, because it is the only way of communicating a message throughout something that is not considered formal such as a letter or secret diaries. Whether we like or not, people used to write everything in personal diaries (for their own purpose) or letters (for others) in order to not be oppressed by their own emotions and thoughts.

It appears that the greatest influential singer now-a-days is Lady Gaga that manages to attract millions of fans all around the world. It is strange but pleasant to think that millions of people (that don't even know each other) reunite and share the same thoughts and opinions on someone they care about. But what I want to know is "if you care about the musical artist, aren't you scared that your positive opinion on her/him might be contradicted or mocked by other people, including friends? For example, I happen to like a band that is not appreciated by others at my school. I used to be scared to share my music publicly because I feared the negative opinions that the students might have had. Music is very personal and I did not want to be "bullied" for listening to a specific artist. In conclusion, I never talked about them and always denied my affection for them.

Why was I doing that? To feel more accepted maybe, but not even I could figure out the real reason for my fear.

What I learnt though, was that I should have not feared the reaction of my companions as their thought doesn't count. I learnt that i did not have to be influenced by the thoughts of others because that would just make me equal to them. I am different because I like a different type of music. The WORLD is different because not everyone likes the same type of music, otherwise there would be really few artists in the world.

The point I am trying to make it that Lady Gaga was right. She said:

- I was born to be brave

- I was born to survive

- I was born this way

- I am beautiful in my way

Remember these words because they are more than true.

There was another famous singer that said "You are amazing just the way you are".

Bruno Mars is not at all wrong. We all have different characteristics that make us unique and special. Why change? Why becoming the bad copy of someone else?

In the world, there are so many people (especially young individuals) that would "die" in order to be born perfect. They are missing one small detail: if everyone thought like this, and if it would have been possible to look exactly like the "ideal" person (even if plastic surgery is advancing), usually an idol, we would all be clones of one another. How boring would this be? No unicity, no special features that make us different from anyone else in the WORLD... not just in our country or our neighborhood... IN THE WORLD.

Different does not have to be boring or ugly. The word itself says it all "DIFFERENT".

Remember these other few words: "Saying what you wanna say, people start to fear it" (Tokio Hotel song 'Hey You')

It is true. This doesn't mean that you have to insult people since you are saying what you thought. It just means that you have to have the courage of speaking up for yourself because no one can ever stop you from being who you really are.

Don't change your personality because your friends are not accepting you in the group. (if they do it, they are not friends).

Don't criticize yourself (mind and body) just because you look different from the Platonic version of yourself. It is not real.

Instead, be natural, spontaneous, be yourself. Be happy of who you are and thank yourself everyday because your unicity is what will distinguish you from any other ordinary clone.