what makes you different makes you beautiful

Last fall, when I went to visit my old gym coach, she told me, "Don't change."

God..... she's so right. Maria's always had good advice, but I didn't realize what she meant by it.

To change yourself to become someone's idea of a better person is ridiculous, stupid, and just plain BS.

But at the same time, to stay static is to refuse change, improvement, and growth..... How can I word this the way I'm trying to say it?

Don't change your looks, your ideas and opinions, your person to satisfy someone else. Don't stay static out of fear you'll become different. Grow as a person, but don't degrade yourself by succumbing to the demands and the pressure of others to become someone you aren't and never will be. No matter how hard it is, stay true to yourself.

I know it's cliche, how everyone says "Be true to yourself". The thing is, they never tell you how difficult it is, how it may happen without you realizing it. And they never tell you how difficult it is to go back to being yourself after you've been impersonating others for so long.

There was nothing wrong with me last year, when I listened to alternative music, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and laughed when I felt like it. People liked me for me because I didn't care what other people thought.

Somehow, sometime last spring, I became different; I paid more attention to what people thought of me and I cared. @$&%! I became one of them.

But no more.

I am me.

Don't like it? Sucks for you, cause there is nothing you can do about it. There is no reason I should change myself to please others; if changing myself for you is what I have to do to be approved, you weren't worth my time in the first place.