I was sitting in the doctors office the other day and I saw a mom and her roughly 10 year old boy sit down. From the way he was acting and from previous experience, I would guess that the boy was autistic. So there they are, sitting there talking (about what I don't know), when all of the sudden the boy raises his voice and says "Why should I change! It's not like it's going to help me any!".
I thought about this for a minute and I thought that coming from a 10 year old boy that it was very insightful. Now I'm not saying that people in general should never change, because I think that to grow as a person, sometimes you need to change. But I do think that in this day and age a lot of people do sacrifice their true sense of self just so that they can fit in. Here was a kid who was not going to have any part of that. He was determined that he would be true to how he wanted to live his life.
I could relate to his mentality on not changing. So many times in life I have been told that dressing a certain way, or getting piercings, or tattoos is going to hold me back in life. I've been told that I need to dress a certain way and conform so that I could get a job and support my family. But if I changed all of those things about me I would not have been true to my true sense of self.
I never did change my appearance for anyone else and you know what? It has never held me back. Sure I have received strange looks and judgmental comments but it has never stopped me from getting a job. I have been a journeyman carpenter, a skilled machinist, and most recently a mechanical technician building very complex machines. On top of that I am a great dad too.
So in the end, staying true to my own sense of self has never held me back.
I thought about this for a minute and I thought that coming from a 10 year old boy that it was very insightful. Now I'm not saying that people in general should never change, because I think that to grow as a person, sometimes you need to change. But I do think that in this day and age a lot of people do sacrifice their true sense of self just so that they can fit in. Here was a kid who was not going to have any part of that. He was determined that he would be true to how he wanted to live his life.
I could relate to his mentality on not changing. So many times in life I have been told that dressing a certain way, or getting piercings, or tattoos is going to hold me back in life. I've been told that I need to dress a certain way and conform so that I could get a job and support my family. But if I changed all of those things about me I would not have been true to my true sense of self.
I never did change my appearance for anyone else and you know what? It has never held me back. Sure I have received strange looks and judgmental comments but it has never stopped me from getting a job. I have been a journeyman carpenter, a skilled machinist, and most recently a mechanical technician building very complex machines. On top of that I am a great dad too.
So in the end, staying true to my own sense of self has never held me back.