Love yourself.

Love the things that make you you.

Your values and talents and memories.

If you love yourself, you can jump into your life from a springboard of self-confidence.

If you love yourself, you can say what you want to say, go where you want to go.

The world can be a tough place, and some of the billions of people out there will try to knock you down.

Don’t join them.

Do things that make you proud, then take pride in what you do.

And in who you are.

Who are you any way?

What makes you you?

How are you like your siblings and neighbors and friends?

If you were your own secret admirer, what would you most admire?

“My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself,”

Oscar Wilde wrote, “is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.”

Keep pursuing your individuality.

Keep being yourself.

Becoming yourself.

It can be comforting to dress and act like everyone else.

But it is grander to be different, to be unique, to be you.

I’m the only me in the whole wide world.

There is always one true inner voice.

Trust it.

Sometimes it’s hard to know who you are and what you want and whom you like and why you like that person.

The answers change because you’re changing.

Growing.

But deep inside, you are you.

You were you as a baby,

you were you as a kid,and you are you right now.

“Let me listen to me and not to them,” wroteGertrude Stein.

It makes sense to consider the advice and opinions of other people.

But don’t let their noise drown out your inner voice.