For those of you that know me even a little bit, you probably know something about my admiration for the Broadway singer Sierra Boggess. She has inspired me in multiple ways, and when I was in some dark spots in my life she was able to lift my spirits with her good humor and love-filled outlook on life. Yes, she is an actress and I am not, but the advice she gives to her fans and the message she spreads in every vlog, interview, or social media post reaches so many more people than just aspiring actresses and actors.

The first thing that I would say I learned from Ms. Boggess is that it's ok to care what people think about you, but you shouldn't let that influence how you view yourself. One of her many quotes that I have taken into my own life is actually from a colleague of hers, and he told her that "You have nothing to prove, only to share." Being in college I feel, and even when I was in high school I often felt, that I am literally trying to prove myself all the time. In high school it was constant testing, constant performances, constantly applying to colleges, constantly trying to do a bunch of different things to round out my application and resume. This hasn't changed much in college; I'm always being tested and assessed to make sure that I'm not slacking. Hearing this quote, while I do need to do well in school of course and practice hard and all that, helped me approach schoolwork and practice/performances in a healthier way.

I also learned that having a goofy and weird sense of humor is awesome. It's easy to get caught up (especially in high school) in the whole being too cool for school, needing others' approval to feel secure in yourself, blah blah blah. But Sierra showed me that (as cliché as it sounds) it's way easier and a lot less stressful to just be yourself, and be as crazy and weird as you want, because life is too short to spend it pretending to be someone you're not. Along with this one goes that we should all laugh a little bit more, and learn to laugh at ourselves a lot more. If you take yourself seriously all the time, well where's the fun in that? Being creative doesn't come from being a serious, perfect, cookie cutter person, but from being flexible, spontaneous, and open.

Sierra also has this amazing perception of the world, one that I'm still working on achieving. She always is posting about random things she finds beautiful or inspiring, like a moth on her window, or a rainstorm raging on outside her apartment. She approaches life with a sense of wonder and awe, happy to be amazed by the simplest things in life. Finding beauty in a broken world can be physically impossible for me sometimes, but I think that it is something I'd like to strive for. Her love for nature and animals is something that I can relate to and think is so incredibly important.

I'll end with her most famous quote, "You are enough, you are so enough, it is unbelievable how enough you are!" This quote was something that I had never heard before in my life. In a world full of people constantly telling you how you can improve, how you've failed, how much you haven't achieved, hearing these words, even if from a complete stranger, spoke to me and helped me combat the feelings of inadequacy that I and so many other people experience every day.