"Be Your Best Self" Essay by Shelby

As teenagers, we hear the phrase “Be your best self” more often than we like. To us, it’s pressure. It’s saying that what we are at the moment doesn’t seem good enough, and our first reaction is almost one of anger. It isn’t easy to change, to admit that maybe, just maybe, we aren’t the best we can be. It’s a lot simpler to go through life being average, or adequate, and society tells us that’s how we should be: just like everyone else. There, however, is the hypocrisy of our culture. Our role models, the ones we feel pressured to be just like, only got where they are today by being their best selves.
Until this summer, I was content to follow the crowd and avoid attention. Rising to life’s challenge and being different seemed so foreign and unacceptable to me. Yet starting senior year, preparing to leave and go to college, and participating in Junior Miss helped open my eyes. Now, I’m working daily to be my best self. It’s a goal that, in theory, is unattainable; after all, no one is perfect. To me, however, this motto is so personal. No one knows me better than I do, and therefore, no one knows better what I need to fix, what I must improve on. It’s only with my own motivation and incentive that I can begin this lifelong journey of growing up and maturing. No one else can make me exercise or avoid peer pressure and be the one who stays away from drugs, nor can anyone else force me to be kinder or more responsible. We, as individuals, control how far we go in life and how much we can succeed.
So now, when I hear the words “Be your best self,” it isn’t anger or annoyance that rises within me. Rather it’s pride, knowing now that each and every day, I am reaching my goal and growing emotionally and intellectually to becoming a better person.