If I Wasn’t Insecure, I Would Have Known Me More...

I want to share something that's been on my mind lately. You see, it's not always easy being a kid, especially when you start noticing things about yourself that make you feel... well, different.

A while ago, I noticed some pimples starting to pop up on my face. Ugh, right? And then my teeth started to get a little uneven. It was like everything was happening all at once! Suddenly, I felt really insecure about how I looked. It seemed like everyone else had perfect skin and perfectly straight teeth, while I was left wondering why I couldn't be like them.

I didn’t have the perfect makeup kit to fix my flaws, not that I even knew how to use one if I did. And to top it off, I was a bit of a nerd. You know the type—glasses, a love for books, and a fascination with things most kids my age didn't care about. I felt weird and different. I didn't really have a lot of friends who got me, and that made things even harder.

So, I started asking myself: Why am I so insecure?

I think part of it is that we all want to fit in. It's like this unspoken rule that to be accepted, you have to look a certain way or act a certain way. But what if you don't fit into that mold? What if you're a little different? That's when those insecurities start to creep in, making you feel like you need to change who you are to be liked or to fit in.

But here's what I'm starting to realize: Being different isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it might be the best thing about me. If I wasn’t so worried about my pimples or my uneven teeth, I might have spent more time getting to know myself. I would have realized that being a nerd isn't a flaw—it's actually kind of cool! It means I’m curious about the world and love learning new things.

If I wasn’t insecure, I would have discovered that my so-called "flaws" are just a part of what makes me unique. Maybe my uneven teeth give my smile a special character, and those pimples? Well, everyone gets them at some point. They don’t define who I am.

I would have known that it’s okay not to have the perfect makeup kit, and it’s perfectly fine to not care about makeup at all. If I wasn’t so busy trying to hide the parts of me I thought were "weird," I might have found out that there are other kids out there who are just like me—feeling the same insecurities, wondering if they’re the only ones.

So, if you’re feeling insecure like I was, I want you to know you’re not alone. We all have things about ourselves that we’re not thrilled about, but that doesn’t mean they define us. Sometimes, it’s those very things that make us special. If we weren’t so focused on our insecurities, maybe we’d get to know the real us—the cool, unique, nerdy us who has so much to offer the world.

And maybe, just maybe, we’d realize that we don’t need to fit in to be amazing. We already are.