HOW TO: Not care about what people think of you

I once spent all of my days obsessing over other people's opinions of me. I have so many memories of standing in front of the mirror, wearing something I completely adored and tearing it off me, just because it was not "fashionable". Aka it wasn't exactly identical to everyone else's clothing. Growing up in my neighborhood life was pretty normal and it seemed frightening to do something different from everyone else. I was so scared of getting picked at that I never let myself be myself.
It soon got tiring and just plain boring to hide in the shadows and after years of fitting in I decided to stop pretending to be someone that wasn't interesting at all. I knew that the first step of that process was to stop caring about other people's opinions. If I'm going to be completely honest it took me a whole summer to break out of my shell and that summer did not involve a lot of socializing. I don't know if this is the right way to do this but me spending almost every day by myself for a whole summer really helped with understanding that opinions of strangers don't matter, at all. That summer it dawned on me that I have to spend the rest of my life with me and no one else. I'm stuck in my own head for the rest of my life. My thoughts have to be positive because I don't think I can survive otherwise. Another thing that I realized that summer was that I'm going to leave this city as soon as I'm ready and that means I'll probably never see my schoolmates or neighbors again. When that thought had been planted in my brain I simply stop caring. 
Although, after that epiphany it took me some time to be able to get the confidence to wear the clothes I wanted to. I still found myself trying on tons of outfits before I found the one that I could be seen in public in. 
What I'm trying to say here is that no matter what you're going to live your whole life as you and you can't change that. It is simply not fair to yourself to spend your days, weeks or even years obsessing about what other people think, it's not worth it. You only get one chance on this earth and I know you've all heard that a billion times before but if you let it sink in you'll realize that it shouldn't matter what other people think. It just shouldn't. Once you get enough confidence to do what YOU want and wear what YOU want your life will be totally different. I can tell you from experience that hiding in the crowd is just no fun. That doesn't mean you have to dance like crazy in the spotlight, just don't be like everybody else. Sticking out is so much more fun than being identical to the majority of the universe. 

A Coco Chanel quote and a poem that helped me a lot during my time of shy and shadow life:

Please don't hide who you are because of other people. You'll miss out on so many great characters and friends that will like you for exactly who you are, they are worth a million people that judge you.

Punk hugs,

Maria