Growing up one of my favorites books was "The Story of Ferdinand" by Munro Leaf. The reason I liked this book was because of the personality of the main character. The story talks about a field full of bulls and each bull wants to be in the arena where bullfighting takes place, but a little peaceful bull named Ferdinand wants no part. One day the men come out and began to pick bulls for the bullfight and every bull begins to show off. The men confused Ferdinand for being an aggressive bull because at the time, he hit a patch of bad luck and was stung by a bee. While he was thrashing around, he looked vicious so they chose him. After getting the little bull to the arena, he would not fight even after he was hurt and abused over and over again. Eventually, they had no choice but to take him back home.
To me, Ferdinand was a hero. He dared to be an exception in an environment that fed off of violence only because no one questioned it. If you asked one of the bulls who wanted to fight why they wanted to, I believe they’d have no true answer. They would probably say something like, “Bulls were born to fight,” “This is just who we are,” or, “This is how it always has been - the men come looking for violent beasts and we put on our show.” But not Ferdinand. He did what is nearly impossible: he was himself when everything in the world pushed against him to be someone else.
I used to wonder why a good amount of the quotes myself and others put in their yearbooks were ones that told people not to change and that they were perfect as they were. Perhaps it’s because they knew the world outside of high school could be cruel and had the potential to destroy a kind and soft personality. I’m not saying that the world is this devastating place to be. In my opinion, where there is sunlight there is shade, for good to exist there must be evil and vice versa. Sometimes the world has a way of making you accept certain identities that were never who you were in the first place. I honestly think that the first way to get off track is to stop spending time alone or in some kind of silence or reflection. Many of us want others to like us; no one desires someone to feel apathetic towards us or even simply dislike us, yet we cannot change someone’s opinions of us all on our own.
People’s opinions of others are not always just based on what a person says but on what others say about you, with a dash of the media in there for those who are easily swayed into believing in stereotypes. Just like the men in "The Story of Ferdinand," they will prance around you with their sharp, pointed ends of who they think you should be. When they come looking for someone who can’t be serious will you supply the need? When they want you to be violent will you turn on others? When they want you to be pitiful will you strip away your own wonder willingly and be less? It seems impossible that there would be people in this world so broken that they were always taking on lesser forms and versions of themselves to appease others but there are people who do things like this and that’s why this article is for them.
E.E. Cummings once said, “To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s trying its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle that you are ever going to fight, never stop fighting.” It is not the acceptance of others that you need so much, but first, of yourself. Once you have accepted yourself the right people will accept you. When you are feeling pressured to be anything less than the best version of yourself do what Ferdinand did and refuse no matter how hard and painful it is to do so. Who you are is worth standing for, it is worth fighting for. Stereotypes or rumor or disapproval from someone else is not allowed to define you and all those boxes they create to hold you, well they’re too small. If you change, do it because you want to, not because someone made you feel as if you had no choice or because you felt that you were inadequate. Make being yourself a full-time job.
