I had thick glasses and a haircut with a fringe that only my mother could make with the right-shaped bowl.
I was bullied badly.
I was standing on a stack of books on the top row of every school photograph.
And yet I could run like the wind, and I captained our school rugby team to the Auckland Championship.
My teacher hated me, and once put my desk in the school corridor for the whole week.
And yet, I was also a straight-A student.
I had an extremely conservative upbringing, and yet I had the filthiest sense of humor.
If there were a set of boxes to put kids in when they were growing up, I truly did not fit in any of them.
Not a day goes by that I am not extremely grateful for all of this.
Being different is the most remarkable gift that can be bestowed upon any person.
Being different allows you to see the world from an angle that most people cannot even imagine.
Being different gives your voice the kind of resonance that carries across all circumstances.
Being different is the key to having a personality that stands out.
Being different fills you with compassion for others who also don’t fit in a world where everyone is clinging to some homogeneous idealized version of normality.
And finally...
When you truly embrace the unique and unusual things about yourself.
You become wonderfully and beautifully free.
To live.
To soar.
To simply be.
To abandon yourself to the incredible lightness of just being.
And so today, I just want to say this: If you’ve ever felt strange, unusual, or like you don’t fit?
I love you.
Be fully you.
Geoff..x