E.E. Cummings once said “it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” Nowadays, teenagers face a lot of problems; piles of homework and exams, family stress, and friendship problems. But I think the biggest problem of teenage life is having a hard time accepting who you are. Let me tell you a little bit story of my life. The story begins in kindergarten when I remember I asked, actually begged my mom to buy me roller skate shoes because a lot of my friends wore that and I wanted to be as cool as them. Eventually, the problem continued until primary school. I had a good friend and one day, she caused troubles and people started talking behind her back. I didn’t know what to do; should I stay by her side or gossip about her too? Being a kid I am, I chose the latter. Why? I had to do a wrong thing because I wanted other people to accept me so badly. But I could honestly said, three years I spend on secondary school was the worst. I looked at people around me and I kept on thinking to myself “why are they so pretty?” or “why do they have nice bodies?” These little thoughts gathered around my head every day. You see, when you start to point out your flaws one by one, you will eventually dislike yourself or even worse, hate yourself, which happened to me. The urge to be desperately liked by everyone else left me feeling empty. However, I made a dramatic internal shift in high school. Because of a newfound faith, I felt that I had a responsibility to begin living my life in a way that reflected who I really was. Small decision by decision, I began to act with the courage to be me. I began to do things that I love such as theatre or swimming and my life is on the right path. And today, I’m standing here telling you the importance of being who you are. Think about a flower garden. It is beautiful because there are many kinds of flowers; white lilies, red roses, pink tulips, and so on. If there is only one kind