“Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.”- e.e. cummings

Whenever you feel like wishing that you could be someone else, just understand that we all have trials in life that we don’t show. Our closest friends have secrets that have tinted their lives, and the times we wish to be them, we don’t really understand or feel. When we feel other’s pains, when we feel empathy, when we feel compassion, it’s ours. I realized that after wanting to be someone else for most of my life, I wasn’t feeling. I wasn’t feeling my own emotions, I was trying hard to be someone else that people would like more, that others would care about. I was believing that I could be someone else. I was trying, I was thinking, I was changing, but never was I feeling. Feeling what it meant to be someone else, because, simply, it wasn’t me. If I really felt what others went through, then I would realize just how blessed I was. And instead of complaining, to actually experience and put my oblivion behind me. I realized that if I followed my own ambitions and my own hopes and dreams that I didn’t need to care about that anymore.

When that moment came to me, it hit me hard. I had always known that everyone went through things that were difficult, but it didn’t occur to me just how much they were going through when they would paste a smile on their face everyday.

Over the course of the last few days, I was at a Model UN conference which involved me sharing a hotel room with three other girls. Over the long nights, and early mornings we shared our own feelings and experiences that we had never told anyone before. When we really felt each other’s compassion, each other’s presence, and our own feelings, we began to unlock another fold in our heart to discovering who we truly are.

When I feel, there is truly no one like me. When you feel, when you truly understand, when you put yourself in another’s shoes, there will be none like you. I hope you take solace in that, because while others may be trying hard to satisfy that infinite unsatisfaction, you will be content with just feeling who you are, and who you can become.