Everybody is different.

Somehow, in some way, we all differ. Even identical twins, in my experience, have been different. Not just in personality, but in physical appearances; my friends Mariah and Brittany (hi friends!) are identical twins, but you can certainly tell them apart. Of course, they look similar, but they do not look exactly the same. They also have vastly different personalities and interests, but that's something that you wouldn't be able to tell from looking at them.

On a much more obvious level, you most definitely differ in appearance in comparison to everyone else in the world. Maybe, maybe you look similar to someone else. (Did you know you can find them?) Everyone has a different build, a different height, different skin tone. (I dislike grouping people by the word "race", especially because within different ethnicities there are different skin tones.) Everyone has different abilities, capabilities, religious beliefs, and moral values. Speaking in terms of genetic variation and other natural laws of the world, the probability of someone else looking or being exactly like you is near impossible.

So why feel bad about looking different?

Everyone else is anyway. Sure, there are some traits that have higher frequencies than others, like brown eyes. Some people change their natural traits through surgery or chemical procedures. Actually, a lot of people change their hair color through a chemical process. There is no reason to feel bad for looking different than everyone else, and anyone who says that you should feel bad is a jerk. Ignore them. If you're like my friends Mark or Reed (hi friends!) who managed to beat the odds in getting the gene for red hair, you've surely heard or made some comments or jokes about your hair color. You know what I think? I think your hair looks great. You go, guys.

If you make a change, do it for you.

Obviously, you have the power to change your appearance how you'd like with the expansive range of technology today. If you choose to undergo any change, make sure you're doing it because you want to, not because someone else made you feel bad about the way you look. There are so many more important things than just how you look, like how you serve the world, who you help, and what you do to make life easier or more enjoyable for others. When you die, what you do is a much more important and memorable than what you looked like.

That's not to say that if you have insecurities about your appearance, they're invalid. Your feelings about your body are valid, and I'd like to think that are very few people that don't have at least one insecurity. I have a couple myself, ranging from the size of my nose to the proportion of my body. Here's a helpful guide to loving your body from Buzzfeed that I hope can help you at least a little.

If I have any other parting words for you, these are them:

Love yourself and stop caring what other people think because:

1) it's your body

2) most people don't actually care

3) the people that do care and tell you how to live life need to get their own.