When I was in eleventh grade, I had economics. It was a pretty boring class, but the people in the class made it pretty entertaining. It was a class that you hated yet looked forward to every time you had to go in there. It was a large group of us that liked to cut up and get on our teacher’s nerves. We talked about anything and everything for the most part.

One day, we got on the topic of doppelgängers. Someone states the fact that apparently there are seven people in the world that look just like you. I jokingly hollered, “Oh man, if there’s someone in the world that looks like me... I feel bad for them!”

The girl raises her eyebrows and says, “Well that’s definitely not what I expected you to say... I thought you were going to say something about how lucky they are!” and started to giggle at the thought. I just chuckled and went on with the conversation.

This conversation seems very irrelevant, but the more I thought about it, the more relevant it became. I began to think about how others see me as a person. I realized that I come off as this person that is very confident in herself, and I like to think that I am most of the time. But I also began to realize that sometimes you do have to “fake it til you make it.” There are days where I don’t feel too confident in myself.

That feeling doesn’t matter, though. You should respect yourself all the time regardless of the insecurity that you feel. You set the standard for how others treat you, so if you’re treating yourself poorly, then others think it’s an opportunity for them to treat you how the way they want. You’ve got to present yourself in ways that people don’t feel right approaching you with disrespect.

This confidence can be very intimidating to those that don’t have it. There really are people who hate to see you living your best life and being happy, but your confidence will always overpower the hate that others have against you. There will always be someone scrunching their eyes with your name in their mouth; that’s just how it is. But they will never be bold enough to approach you with a problem.