Out of Tune

We live in a perfect world.

Wait, let me rephrase that: we live in a world that thinks its perfect. We live in a world full of people who daily hide their true identity in order to be more "perfect." We live in a world full of fakes, and the problem is that when you surround yourself with fakes for long enough, you start to forget that genuine people exist. When we spend so much time using others as our guides, we easily overlook their fallibility.

Think about it this way: I'm not very musical, but I have many friends who are very musical (it disgusts me really). Sometimes I watch them tune their instruments and hope to learn what's actually going on. I remember one time in particular when a friend struggled for several minutes to tune her guitar. She finally announced, "my tuner is broken." All along, I thought something was wrong with her skills, because she clearly could not make the tuner happy. In reality, because she knew what the instrument should have sounded like, she was able to tell when the guide was off. Because I had been basing the sound off of a broken model, I never noticed that anything was wrong. 

I think that most of society is using a broken tuner. 

Our guides are models, television characters and disney princesses. Of course they are perfect: they are scripted, edited and retouched into the ideal image. We live in a world that thinks the Kardashians are a "real" American family and that the Bachelor is about finding "true" love. We live in a world that easily confuses the real with the fake. On a personal level, people confuse who they are with who they think people want them to be. 

Luckily in this world full of fakes, there are some misfits who dare to stand out, who dare to be weird, who dare to be real. I'm proudly one of them.

I've made many important decisions in my life (where to go to school, when I should take certain classes and what type of ice cream I should get) but I think that the most important decision I have ever made, is the one that I make every day: Every morning, when I wake up, I choose to be real. I decide that rather than perfectly script my day in order to please the many people around me, I will let the real me show through, flaws and all. 

I'm not perfect. Actually, I'm far from. I say things that come across wrong. I have a talent for making a situation awkward. Most people would say that I get too excited. I laugh too loud. I love too much. I try too hard. But I think it's a perfectly "Taylor-ed" amount (Yes, I love puns). If I tried to change who I am just to please more people, I wouldn't be me, I would be the world's version of me. Instead, I am always me.

While I know that a quieter, calmer, and more passive Taylor would have more "friends," I also know that she would laugh less, smile less and stress more. She'd dream less, aspire less and sulk more. She wouldn't joke with cashiers at every store she goes to, wouldn't wave to someone she only met once, and she wouldn't go out of her way to love the unlovable. While it might not be the way most people want me to act, I can't hide who I really am. I don't live for the world. I live for Someone way more important and He thinks I'm pretty swell just the way I am.


I'll be honest, a lot of people don't like that. Many people don't even try to hide their disdain. Sometimes I feel like Taylor Swift's "Shake it off" is my theme song. But I'd rather be loved by a few than liked by many. I'd rather be real to the world, than fake to myself.