I remember a girl who went by the name of Gucci. I met
her when I was about twelve-years old.
I don’t know if Gucci was her real name, or if it was
a pseudonym she’d given herself, but I liked it; it somehow suited her.
Now, she was not the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, but
she oozed this confidence that just rocked the socks off everyone she came into
contact with.
No lie, this girl was just that person who is
naturally adored by everyone. She didn’t have a strut, per se, but she did – if
you know what I mean – with her head held high, she was outgoing and friendly,
laughing loudly at any old thing with her head thrown back, calling everyone
‘sweetie’, interested in anything that anybody was speaking about, gently resting
her hand on your shoulder during every conversation she had; just plain
charismatic.
Me, being shy and withdrawn, and never really sure of
myself, would watch her in admiration, blushing profusely when she noticed –
she often did and would then come over and say something like, ‘Look at how
pretty you are sitting over here, you sweet little thing’, and I would want to
purr against her hand, wanting all of her approval, embarrassingly ridiculous –
wanting so badly to be this girl called Gucci!
Somewhere along the way, I think that my mind, or my
heart – whichever can truly be held responsible – caused my admiration for
these women to transform into me imitating them.
I found myself looking up to all sorts of women who
exuded confidence, with an intense desire to be confident within myself.
I don’t think that drawing inspiration from another
human is a bad thing; in fact, I think it’s wonderful to find something within
a fellow human that brings out the desire to better oneself.
The problem, however, was that in my admiration, I was
not, in reality, working on bettering myself.
Instead, I was becoming a copy of the women I looked
up to. I tried to dress like them, I used phrases that I heard them say, I
tried to be them, and let’s just be honest-
doing this just made me ever the more miserable.
Here’s the thing: you can’t be like anybody else.
You can look up to someone and love what she does,
what she represents, how she dresses, the way she speaks, and even how she
looks, but unless you’re only giving her your
stamp of approval and giving credit where credit is due, you’re bound to
fail.
You see, the fact and reality of the matter is that
you will never be able to be the person you look up to. You will never achieve
exactly what she achieved, you will never do things in exactly the way she did
it, you will never look exactly the way she looks in any outfit, you will never
speak or look like her, and you will definitely never get her stamp of approval or respect.
Why?
Here’s why: while imitation may be the best form of
flattery, at the end of the day, nobody really knows who you even are if all
you do is about someone else. Nobody knows the real you; nobody knows what aspect about you is authentic! And there is
no way that you can ever do someone else better than they can. Nobody can
respect what they don’t know, including YOU!
The whole issue reminds me of a time when I was
younger, and our class was given an art assignment to create a collage. We all
did our best, but many of kids just didn’t do as good of a job as some of the
others, in much the same way as when we were given writing assignments, and
many just exceled.
You see, we all have our own talent and our own
‘thing’ that makes us exactly who we are.
I could see that my collage was good, I was good at
sport, but I was not extraordinary like some of the other kids, and it would
have been sad if I had just strived continuously to be as good as the others
when it was just not my niche, not my ‘thing’.
And so I discovered just how frustrating it is to try
and morph myself into being another confident woman when the confidence was not
mine. I mean logically, how could I ever know exactly what it was that gave her
that air of confidence if it wasn’t mine? And how could I be confident in
myself if I didn’t know what it is about me that allows me stand out and be
different from everyone else if I kept trying to be the confidence that
belonged to someone else?
I see so many young girls and even young adult women
who are looking up to these celebrities, trying to imitate what they see on TV
shows and music videos.
I see these females trying to dress like these
celebrities, using little phrases that they hear their idol using, and the
imitations-list can go on and on.
I think I can even take it as far as when these women
get into relationships and even in their friendships, when it doesn’t work out,
it’s such a surprise, but honestly, they were not themselves to begin with, and
so only snippets of who they were, were given in the relationship, when perhaps
if they’d been real throughout, there might have been an entirely different
outcome.
To be honest, I grew tired of trying to be like the
other confident women I came into contact with when I met too many of them. I
met too many strong, self-assured women to decide which one I most wanted to be
like, and that was when I truly woke up and realized just how much of a
difficult time I was giving myself; just how I was setting my entire existence
up for complete failure.
It took a lot of searching for me to find the person I
really am (because of how many years I had been trying to be someone else I
thought was better than who I really was at my core) but since I have, the
amount of peace I feel inside is indescribable, not to mention the excitement I
have for what is yet to come!
I still look up to people who really are
inspirational, but instead of trying to be that element which appeals to me, I
find what it is about it that I feel connected with, and hone in on that.
I know what works for me now, I know what clothes,
music, style, scene and lifestyle suits me, and this brings a sense of comfort
into my life. I am far from how frustrated I used to be because I know my
story, and I know how to reach my own full potential, knowing how comparing
myself to someone else is nothing but futile.
I thought back on Gucci when I finally made my
breakthrough, and I realized that her confidence was purely based on her being
comfortable in her own skin – flaws and all – and she knew exactly what she
wanted from life. Hell, she LOVED herself!
Gucci was on to something even back then; what’s more
logical than that?
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