Your imperfections are the best part of you. Forget what the magazines and TV ads tell you, the expectations that you’ve been taught to believe everybody achieves, are flat out unrealistic.
As a person, your strengths are one and the same as your individuality. There is nobody else alive today who thinks, acts, and believes exactly the same as you do. The most valuable thing you have to offer the world is not your ability to fit in with what everybody else thinks you should be. It’s not your ability to live up to the hype, marketing, and expectations that are put on you. What makes you unique and special is what you do differently, the twists that you put onto how you express yourself, and the quirks of personality that stand you apart from everyone else.
Most especially, the times when you go off the beaten path are the times when you most clearly express the truth of your inner self.
Nobody cares, two years after you’re gone, how clean you kept the house. Nor do they remember you for how well you followed in the footsteps of everyone else, finishing school, getting a job, getting married, raising kids, retiring, and never setting foot outside the guidelines laid down for you by society’s expectations. You are, and will be remembered for the things you did, said, and were that surprised people, shocked them, or made them think.
For some reason, there’s something in all of us that wants to fit in. We want to be accepted, to run with the crowd, and fade into the background. It’s easier that way. We work hard to file down the rough edges and slide smoothly into the mould that everyone else fits into. In doing that, we’re sacrificing the chance to make a difference, the opportunity to express something and achieve something that nobody else can. We celebrate the things that make us the same as everyone else, and revile the things that set us apart. But those are the very things that we need to embrace, celebrate, and delve into, so we can find the meaning in our own lives. Those quirks are the best expressions of the core of who you are. Most of all, they are the gateways to how you, as an individual, are most likely to make a difference to the world.
You’ll never be perfect, so forget about trying. Nobody else is ever going to achieve it either. But the ways you are imperfect are uniquely yours. Don’t close them away. Allow yourself to be an individual, apart from the crowd. Let yourself express the unique value that you have to offer, and embrace the idiosyncrasies that make you a true original.
[Unconventionality Rocks! You are hereby invited to argue with me. Am I wrong?]