SOME THOUGHTS ON BEING UNIQUE

I am different.
Not in a ‘I am more special or better than others kind of way’,
but in a ‘I am myself and therefore unique’ way.

I don’t have to function like everybody else does.

I don’t have to like what everybody else likes.

As a matter of fact I mustn’t.

For if I forsake who I am for the sake of being liked by others or accepted by what we call society,
then I withhold my much needed uniqueness from the body.

The body, you see, is made from so many different parts and pieces.

Every piece needs the other to survive.

Therefore my uniqueness isn’t just a pretty idea.

Me living as me, you living as you - it’s a matter of life and death.
If encountering me in my uniqueness was meant to inspire and stir the next president or nobel price winner, or other sort of world changer and I withhold it for fear of man, wouldn’t that be a disaster?
Notice, I use the word uniqueness, NOT individualism.

Uniqueness is what makes me - ME.

In my case that’s my quirks like the desperate need to sit on the floor all the time or how distracted I get by butterflies, my love for writing, my ever so slightly social awkwardness.

It’s that I love big shows and a couple of weeks at the monastery in the same way.
Uniqueness that knows it exists for because it was meant to.

Individualism seeks only its own - whatever the cost.
It does not care about contributing to the collective and though it knows a form of empathy, it is always with SELF at the centre.

Uniqueness on the other hand, is fully self and unique, yet knows it is nothing on its own. It needs the collective and contributes to it and through that, paints a beautiful picture of what it means to be diverse but ONE.

So today, when you’re on your way to work or school or do whatever it is you do, BE YOURSELF. We need you. This world needs you.

Not a watered down version of you. But YOU.

Jess xx