By now, I'm sure everyone has either seen or heard of the movie "The DUFF." If you haven't, let me sum it up for you. A high school girl has this nagging feeling that her friends are skinnier and prettier than her. She goes through her days being told that they are. This just confirms her fear: she is a DUFF, a Designated, Ugly, Fat, Friend. She starts a revolution, a journey to discover who she really is and to find her style. In the end, she realizes that she is not in fact a DUFF and learns to embrace who she is.

I am a DUFF. No, I am not using this article to push myself down, in fact, I hope it does quite the opposite. We all have something that we are extremely insecure about. Sometimes it is pointed out by those that surround us. Other times it might be something only we can see. Fortunately for all of us, unlike in the movie, our insecurities are not blasted all over the Internet left to go viral. But just because that doesn't happen, does not mean that our insecurities automatically disappear. Here is the bright side to being a DUFF; I know I am not alone.

From the time we were all little kids, we were taught to never judge a book by its cover. What we were never taught, however, was that we would be our worst critic. For some reason, we see ourselves one way while the rest of the world sees us in another. We push ourselves down and then cover our pains with a smile to lift those around us up. For as long as I can remember, people have been telling me that if I do not like something, then change it. But what happens when that something we do not like is the way we look? It does not matter if you are a size 0 or a size 24. We all look in the mirror and sometimes don't like what we see staring back at us. People say that when you are skinny you can't hate your body, and if you are bigger then you should do something to change it. Society tells us to look one way, but for some reason we can't even bring ourselves to see our image for what it is, a work of art. We all have those days where we just go through a mental list of things we would change about ourselves. Men and women alike all have these days, even when they don't admit it.

Some people want to change their hair color, others would change a scar, or a few would change the amount of unwanted attention. We all have those days where we wish we had "the perfect body." For some reason, what we have and what we look like just never seems like it is good enough for us. We let those that are around us dictate the way we see ourselves. I am guilty of it, we all are. We let these thoughts consume us and use them to push ourselves down. Constantly people say that it's a cold cruel world out there, but imagine a world where instead of using words to push ourselves down, we used them to lift others up.

So yes, I may be a DUFF. I have my insecurities, and there are days where I look around me and then look at myself, wondering why I can't look a certain way. Then again, we all do. We are all DUFFs in a world of DUFFs. But from now on, we should all embrace ourselves for what we are. We are all unique and if you think about it, Little Jackie and the Stoop said it best, "There's only one me in the galaxy, I am an endangered species." We can't keep living our lives like a college student who believes what she is told, that she is a DUFF. It is time for us to live our lives as the college student who realizes that she is amazing, irreplaceable, and unique. It is time that we realize that there is no mold for us to try and fit. We are all perfectly imperfect, and it is time that we start to be perfect enough for all of us. So cheers to being a DUFF, a Dynamic, Unique, Fabulous, Friend.