Sometime earlier this school year, my literature teacher gave us an assignment called the Laws of Life Essay. It's a contest held by the Better Business Bureau every year for students to reflect on the laws they live by from their own experiences. The assignment wasn't meant to difficult. It was just meant to be a completion grade, as long as you followed the guidelines. I told my friends (when they asked me) I didn't know what to write about, even though it was more that I didn't want to write what I had originally thought about. If that makes sense... Either way, something told me to write about it, and even though I didn't win, I feel that my "Laws of Life"is something that everyone can relate to in some way. So here it is.

“They laugh at me because I am different, I laugh at them because they are all the same” -Anonymous

People have secrets. People have fears. People have insecurities. That’s just the way of life. But should it be? Too often, I see magazines depicting the body “everybody should have”, society inducing certain gender norms, “men are masculine, females are feminine”, people who spew hate or ridicule others for their physical or mental differences. I experienced all three.

When I was in fifth grade, I was bullied for my weight, personality, and race. The bullying was not severe where someone would steal my lunch money or push me around, but the thoughts one would have after being bullied were similar. I was different, not the same. Even though that group’s insults were not extremely terrible, those thoughts, compiled with exclusion and family issues at home led me to the only solution I had thought was best at the time. Suicide. I remember me thinking, “The world is better off without me, I’m doing everyone a favor”. Then the ground flew up at me.

Miraculously I was okay with no injuries. But as I lay on the ground, trying to catch my breath, I thought to myself, “This is stupid. Why do I care so much about what strangers think of me when they don’t know anything about me? Why do their opinions matter?”. The simple answer is; their opinions don’t matter. From that point on, I decided to live my life how I wanted to live it, listening to only the opinions of God, family and friends, who I care about and I know care about me.

However, I’m still struggling. My dad has a tumor that could kill him at any moment and my mom is diagnosed with breast cancer. I am once again different. Different in which obstacles I am facing at my age. But this time, suicide isn’t the solution. Perseverance is. It always has been. As I look back at fifth grade to present day, I realize the trust I put in God and my perseverance to conquer life and to prove to myself and others that I can do it, brought me to this point and will fuel me to live the rest of my life with passion.

Unfortunately, even though I realized this Law of Life, others have not. I see with each passing day, more and more people are starting to lose their individuality. Succumbing to the pressures of society and peers, what makes a person who they are starts to blend in with the majority. However, I’m sure most everyone who has been asked the question “would you ever want to live in a world in which everyone is the same?” has answered no, and watched movies and read books that toy with the idea and disliked that society. Even history has taught us that a uniform world is bad with WWI and WWII. Be that as it may, I’ve noticed that as people age, their identity begins to fall apart which is the root cause of many mid-life crises. Not knowing what to do with their lives, older generations tend to take up hobbies and take risks to fill in that hole. Younger generations, commit suicide or hurt themselves due to their desire to be like everybody else. Despite all that, there is hope.

Through my story, I urge you to laugh in the face of uniformity and to be ecstatic about your individuality. To find who you are and to be who you want. To listen to the opinions from love and ignore the ones from judgement. To be proud and happy, that you are different.