They tell me to grow up. So I do.

They tell me to slow down. So I take a step back.

The tell me to think about others. So I forget about myself.

They tell me to express myself. So I try.

They tell me not to worry about it. So I let it go.

They tell me not to offend anyone though I'm already offended. So I do my best.

They say be honest but not too too honest. So I hold my tongue.

They say be yourself, but I can’t. So instead, I become the person they have instructed me to be.

So far life has been this constant battle of saying the right thing, doing the right thing and always presenting myself to be this perfect person, be it online or in real life, which is impossible. Let me walk outside with my Nike shorts and XL t-shirt on and there's going to be some genius walk up to me and ask, “Are you wearing pants?” because heaven forbid I wear a shirt that could pass as a dress after having been up all night writing one of my four papers due this week. I will respond to assumed genius by lifting up my shirt just enough to show my shorts and keep it moving. Mumbling, “Why do you care?” under my breath as I roll my eyes walking away, going about my day in my comfy outfit structured around it's flow and casualness.

Or, let someone of color be it clear, brown, green or everything in between with prestige express to the world openly with neither shame nor conviction that Black Lives Matter along with the lives of our educators, children and police officers. A complaint will be filed and a petition for them to be fired from a job they excel at will be posted online for the world to sign. All for stating something we all know to be true, secretly or not, in a setting that is a mere dream for most and a reality for others. There are no winners, just self appointed dictators of right and wrong focused on their own personal agendas.

So many people want to interject and instruct you on how to live your life when they need to be tending to their own grass trying to make that stuff a little greener because it looks a little spotty from all the shade and side eye they're throwing causing them to miss a spot or two. As they say, “I got me. Worry about you.”

Life isn't a race or a competition. I'm no better than you and you're no better than me or that homeless man on the street. It's just merely the longest experience we'll ever have and the only thing I know I won't get a second chance at, at least not in this form. Respectfully, I’m going to make the most of it. Life is too short to be lived in the confines of someone else's rules.

With that said, I'm going to write what I want to write. Say what I want to say. Dress how I want to dress. Dance how I want to dance. Kiss who I want to kiss. Eat what I want to eat. Drink what I want to drink. Take as many selfies and videos as I'd like and believe what I want to believe. I'm at this point in life that I care more about the world and my relation to it, but less about some of the inauthentic people in it.

I think Beyonce said it best in a completely different context with the same undertone of liberation, “I ain't sorry.”