Lesson 1 - Always Best to be Your Authentic Self

I've created this blog, because through out my life I've had a number of successes and failures.  What I've noticed though is I've learned more from my failures and mistakes then from the successes. Generally, in the most difficult times of my life is when I grew and learned the most. So, as I remember all of my life's lessons, I plan to blog what the failure, mistake, catastrophes were and what I learned from them.

As a kid I was kind of a geek, and definitely not popular in any way. In my grammar school there was this one girl I remember named Liz.  She was the most popular girl in our school. I truly admired her.  She was not only beautiful, smart, and talented (she always played the lead in all the school plays, and was the lead violinist in the school's orchestra), she had loads of friends.  I recall that one day; I decided I would study her. I would learn all her mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, speech, and I would study harder, so that I too could make it on the honor roll (this last part was not a bad idea).

I became so good at coping Liz, that if you closed your eye, you could swear I was indeed her.  Liz being the most popular girl in school also took to calling attention and making fun of all the geeks, nerds, and all other misfits (I being one of her targets).

One day, I had come early to school, and saw a bunch of students milling around the front of the school.  They seemed to be teasing a nerdy looking kid, just sitting on the stoop.  I came by, and decided to put on my Liz mask, and started to join in on their teasing of this boy.  I made what I thought was a rather cleaver joke about his glasses (which I felt were really big and ugly). Everyone in the crowd burst into laughter, and for that moment, I felt like the popular kid.  They all started to make their own jokes about his ugly glasses. The boy with the big glasses at this time started to cry.

Then when I totally wasn't expecting it, another boy in the crowd, noticing that I'm one of the geeky kids brought this fact to the attention of the rest.  The crowd then turned to cruel jokes and teasing in my direction. I immediately felt humiliated, as I realized that I had acted as awful as Liz, and the rest of the people who regularly make fun of me and all the non-popular kids.  It was then that I came to the conclusion that I would never want to be like these callous people (even if being them would make me the most popular girl in school).


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