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What Sets You Apart Is What Sets You Above
Being different is your greatest asset. Here’s why
I didn’t ask for this.
At one point I would have given just about anything to throw away whatever set me apart. I didn’t want it. It was a curse — an albatross hung around my neck for not being like everyone else.
You could say my early teen years were difficult.
In junior high and high school, we all learned soon enough the only way to survive is to walk, dress and talk like everyone else. We dared not deviate, because the price of being different is being alone.
Only, I never got that memo, and I didn’t have the faculties to understand how to be like everyone else. And I paid the price.
What’s it like being alone in Middle School? Let me tell you.
I remember I had to find ways to pass the time during lunch. Lunch! That’s the best time of the day, and an opportunity to socialize with your friends — if you had any.
Since I didn’t, my goal was to stay off the radar of the little assholes who demonstrated allegiance to the group by shunning the other, lest they be cast as the mutant themselves. So my goal was to try to be less of a target. I’d eat my lunch privately, and then I’d go for a walk to pass the time.
