We are people pleasers.

We are compliant in a discussion.

We are scared of what people will think.

We do not want to be the bad guys.

In a strange way, we are extremely selfless because we are afraid of being selfish.

We see speaking out for ourselves as a no.

We just talk a lot ... we do not say a lot.

I don't think any of my friends fully understand this dirty little secret — I don't agree with every viewpoint they have. I just seem like I do. I seem like I have their backs just by nodding, saying they are right, and following along. I am pretty pitiful to very stubborn people who say what they want no matter what. However, those people who need to start a fight over every topic usually do not have a lot of followers.

We are all made to have that fight or flight gene. We fight for what we truly believe is right, but we also know when there is no reason to fight anymore, and we are wrong. For people who have too much fight, they can be turned into a selfish bully, when really they are not. For the people who mentally flight and just agree, they are taken in as friends, but seem to have duct tape over their mouths.

What gene would you rather have?

For people afraid of saying what they want, I understand. For some reason, almost every debate we get into, we seem to lose. We aren't taken seriously, and for some reason, we took the minority's side. We are afraid of being judged for speaking out for what we want, for being a little too sarcastic, and even saying no to something everyone else is saying yes to.

We used to be stubborn. Really, most of us started out as hard asses who only went by what our morals thought. We used to slam our foot down, let our instincts take over, and debate over the most mundane things. It was so easy. We didn't care about losing, but we wanted people to know that we were never going to back down. We talked too much, and barely reasoned at all. We needed to be Alpha. We needed something to be in charge of, and for a while, we were content, despite feeling like everyone was judging us.

And then the feeling became a certainty. People were laughing. Our opinions were called stupid during a debate. We had fights with friends over our opinions we gave for advice- it wasn't the advice they wanted, but it was the advice they needed. Our parents said that we went to far. We became hot heads. We became people who were not as trusted as they once were.

So one day, we just stopped arguing. Yes, we still had passive aggressive jokes, but when it came down to serious matters, we read people, realized what they wanted to hear, and nodded. We said yes on command, even when no was the only right answer...it was the only answer. We wanted to gain back the trust we feel like we lost, so we changed, and deflated to get on the same level the rest of the world was. In reality, we sunk below the surface.

Our minds light up with so many ideas we wish would could say, but our mouths fight against it until the brightness of that thought dies. We believe everything we think of is not worth a discussion. Even if there is a possibility that it will be good, it stays at the back of our throats. We are choking on what we wish we could shout. We write on our hand, or scream in a pillow to just keep ourselves in check. If we don't control ourselves, we attack. We turn into that stubborn person with a mean streak, and we are the bad guy once again.

So after that, we take the blame, fall on the sword, and say sorry. No one can see that we are bleeding.

There are so many things we wish we could say:

"The Red Sox aren't as good as the Yankees. They aren't winning anything this year!" (For the baseball season).

"You clearly have no clue why I am sad! You ever think it is because of you?" (For the friends who do not truly understand why you cracked in the first place, taking no fault. You take ALL the fault).

"He isn't good for you!" (That's the end of friendships).

"You are wrong." (We are wrong then).

We have learned to think that we are in the evil world if we say what we believe. We have made ourselves believe it. We cannot be in the good world, however, if we just walk through it without truly living it.

To me, a girl too afraid to say her mind, I say we find an in between of fight and flight. We find a way to relax our stubbornness, and still be trusted. We will also no longer be walked over. It hurts. It does hurt. We deserve to rip that tape off our mouths, and no longer just talk. We deserve to speak. We deserve to show our minds to the world, and find people who respect it. We should not change for others if they are too sensitive. We deserve to live. We deserve to think. We deserve to be stubborn and courageous and messy.

We deserve to define ourselves by what we believe and say. Cause that makes us who we are in the end.