You’re not me, and that’s okay
It’s often said that emulation is the pinnacle of flattery, but that’s often as far as it needs to go. Sure, it’s high praise knowing that someone out there values you or your work enough to replicate it, but it’s okay to be different. When you look at children, going through life, they draw these comparisons between themselves. Maybe one young man reads, another works out. They may be asking themselves, “Well, why doesn’t so-and-so do this? Is something wrong with them?” The only certainty we can really claim to know in our lives is ourselves, so we constantly have to adjust our framework to answer those questions. We look at other people and attempt to create some rubric or criteria for us to analyze and compare, but it’s truly an impossible task. The great thing about human nature is God created us to be different. You are the only you that will ever exist. Even in cases of fraternal twins, their personalities will be completely different. In the rare cases of cloning, the animal that was cloned had all the physical resemblance in the world to the original, but their personalities were so incredibly different. Scientists argue over nature and nurture, but the fundamental of the matter is, people are as different from each other as night and day. It takes a hard effort to really grasp this concept, that it’s okay to be different, to like other things, to have other hobbies, and to even wear different clothes. What good would the world be to us if humans were popped out of the oven like gingerbread men, all of us identical and without nuance?
A cookie cutter world serves no purpose in defining our meaning, which we achieve through self-reflection, adversity, and challenging ourselves to find our passions and talents. You’d walk into a room and say, “Nice shirt,” or “Good work on those spreadsheets, “ and everyone within earshot would say, “thanks,” because absolutely nothing sets you apart. If our differences define us, why wish those away? A quirk doesn’t have to be a manufacturer’s defect; same as how someone else’s skillset doesn’t make them superior to you. Don’t let your insecurities perverse your perceptions so you see the entire world as a car lot, waiting to pick out the lemons. Some of us love to sit in an office; others hate to be in a computer for more than fifteen minutes. Those differences are what allow the world to function as well as it does, each cog acting according to its own will, but still participating in the bigger scheme of things. When people say, “it takes all kinds,” it’s important to remember that it actually does.
