You do you, boo-boo.

In the wise words of Shailene Woodley, “No one can do you like you can do you. No one can do her like she can do her and no one can do him like he can do him.” You see, we are each our own little constellation made up of the things we like, the things we don’t like, the weird things we do, the experiences we’ve had and every little thing in between. We are unique no matter how hard we try to fit in and be just like everyone else. The thing is, we can’t be just like anyone else because we simply aren’t anyone else. We are ourselves, so let’s be ourselves confidently.

“No one can do you like you can do you.” Let’s explore this a bit, shall we? No one else is exactly like you. No one else has seen the exact combination of struggles you’ve faced. No one else likes all of the same things you like. So what if you love waking up early in the morning? I don’t like to do that, but why should that stop you? So what if you like to play video games into the wee hours of the night? Your mom might not like that, but why…oh. Well, maybe we should listen to our mothers…. but the point I’m trying to reach is that if someone doesn’t like all the things you like, then it isn’t the end of the world! We can all still be friends!

Now, on to the real hard hitting stuff.

The comparison is a little sh**. It nags at you before you go to sleep. It creeps up on you when you’re with friends. It lurks around the corner when you’d least expect it and it will always be there unless you tell it to go away. That’s right. You heard me. You can tell it to go away. You don’t have to compare yourself to the girls you see in the magazines. You don’t have to compare yourself to the guy you work with. We go through life with abundant opportunities to tell ourselves we aren’t good enough. We can look at someone else and say,”I can’t sing as well as she can.” “I’m not as smart as he is.” “She can do that better than I can.” It doesn’t matter if you can do something any better or any worse than someone else. What matters is whether or not you did it.

Don’t ever compare yourself to another human being. Do what you do the best that you can and leave it at that. Just know that you did it and that will always be enough. Maybe not by someone else’s standards, but who cares about their standards anyway?