Dare to be Different: Reflections of Our Uniqueness
Not every human is built the same.
Growing up meant moving away from your parents. You never thought about how bills were going to get paid, you just wanted to live in the moment. We were independent, considering ourselves grown.
Along the way we heard the echoes of our high school graduation commencement speech, “Dare to be Different”, reverberating in our ears. We had some idea of what it meant, but we wouldn’t really understand its true meaning.
“Dare to be different” was a slogan that encouraged us to be individuals who were capable of thinking for ourselves instead of having others think for us. In situations of peer pressure, if others were doing the wrong thing and wanted you to join them, you were forced to make a choice: follow the crowd or dare to be different. This also meant being unique in every aspect.
Remember stepping foot for the first time on a college campus, and you observed crowds of students like yourself, who were eager and on a mission to earn an education. Not everyone looked the same.
The number of us who didn’t attend college but who sprung into the workforce immediately got a glimpse of the same thing. We took notice that everyone didn’t look like us. We noticed that everyone didn’t think the same way we did.
Not everyone is meant to be left-handed, have red hair, or be tall. What did make us all the same was the competing desire to be the best. In order to be the best meant sometimes coming up with innovative processes to achieve our goals.
Some of us are artsy, some of us are direct, and some of us take longer to make decisions that can have a substantial impact on the rest of our lives. When you dare to be different sometimes you stand alone, which is where your unique creative contribution can thrive.
©2022 J. Laportia Le Noir
