High school can be really rough at times, especially for those of us that don’t fit the mold or “status quo.” There are those people in high school that try so hard to fit in and hold so tightly to attention and popularity, and they’ll do anything to keep those things. So, for those of us that dare to be bold and stand out, we tend to get attacked or made fun of. People don’t understand how or why you’re different, so in response sometimes they lash out.

In my person experience, I went to a tiny high school in Oklahoma (I graduated with 22 people in my senior class) and I stood out like a sore thumb. My high school was great, but it was focused mainly on sports, so a girl that’s all about fashion, art, and music definitely doesn’t blend in well. I played one sport, but it wasn’t what my whole life was centered around, and some people just didn’t seem to understand that. I also chose to dress up every day, and that was another reason some of them snubbed me.

It took a while, but I finally learned that as long as I’m true to myself, it shouldn’t at all matter what the rest of my high school peers thought or said about me. I was always told by my family that there will constantly be people in my life trying to tear me down, so there’s no use trying to stop or prevent it. You just have to live. So, my advice to others who stand out in their high school, college, workplace, etc is that forget what everyone else is saying you should do or be and just do you. Someone very close to me once told me “when you try to make your mark on the world, you’re going to attract erasers.” Another piece of advice to get you through is to just dream the days away. I know I couldn’t have been the only one counting down those days until I graduated, and sometimes all you can do is just go day by day. My last piece of advice- dream big. There is literally no dream that is too big so always reach far and high you’ll be amazed by the places you go.