Dare To Be Different

This past year, I was given a gap year. Not your ordinary gap year where students often take a break from their education to work or travel. Yet the purpose was the same - to find out who I am and who I want to be.

All my life, I was part of a 'group' of friends, and my identity, my beliefs, my actions were all as part of that group. Don't get me wrong. I did nothing that I did not want to do. Yet I did not do everything I did want to do.

So this past year, I ventured without the security of that 'group.' And I found my passions in tasks deemed uncool: Teaching, Debating, Reading and Writing. Being passionate about these is often beyond the comprehension of most people who strive everyday to conform to the norm. But it is only when you dare to be yourself, and take a look at the faces around you, will you see who your true friends are.

It takes an immense amount of courage, no doubt. But with it comes an immense amount of joy. A liberation. Strength.

Dare to be yourself. Dare to be different.