18. Dare to Be Different

Have you ever wondered why we can’t be different? Is it because we want to be popular? Is it that we can’t stand the loneliness of being different – the need to be part of the crowd?

It costs a high price to be different. Only those who are willing to pay the price will succeed in being counted as different. We have to ask ourselves why we want to be different. Why is it difficult for us to express our true ideas?

We first must ask the question, “Who wrote the book on what is right? Who told us who we think we really are?” Why do people feel they have the right to tell you what is right?

Who gave one person the authority on life, particularly my life?

Why should anyone tell me how to feel, what to believe or what to think? This is my life, and as long as I do what God wants to me to do, I will do it. That is the only way I can survive and discover the real me.

I have been what people told me to be. I have always acted the way I was told I must act. I have been feeling the way someone told me I should feel about every emotion and situation.

I have been thinking like someone else told me to think. I have become someone else, and the true me constantly cries out to be revealed. I need to emerge, to be heard, accepted adn loved.

Since I know this is impossible, I will settle for being like the rest. I will not create waves; I will flow with the crowd, and I will be miserable.

Yes, I may think, feel and act differently from the norm, but who wrote the book on normalcy? If what most people do is normal, then we are a sorrowful lot.

Most people do not love unconditionally. Most people will not forgive and forget. Most people will not show their true emotions.

Most people will lie and live in darkness. Most people are not true to themselves and others. Why should I be like more people?

I will chance being different, but different in ways that are creative and not destructive. I will be different in ways that are inventive and not lazy, in ways of love and not hate.

I will learn to gracefully and respectfully reject ideas that go against my true self. I will not try to prove myself – I will just be myself.

I will not justify the way I feel, for you cannot justify true existence. Jesus only told the truth; He never justified the truth.

You cannot justify the truth; you can just be truthful. Untruths and bad decisions must always be justified – other people convinced that what is wrong is really okay. Many people think that “different” is wrong. They cannot give you a reason why you cannot feel and act differently than others; it isn’t what is expected.

Different means to take whatever you know and present the same idea with your own feelings. The idea does not change.

Being different means taking that idea and expounding on it, reaching out with it. It means testing that idea and improving on it. Doing that means you will be called “different.”

I dare you to be different. I dare you to succeed.