"I hate you Ifeoma, you carry your self like your the only one in this world. Your just too confident and you talk like the world is under your feet. See, there is nothing special about you. You are so skinny and ugly. Mtchew..... ". I  was too dumbfounded and couldn't move a muscle. I kept staring at her as she continued to spew her hate for me. She told me a lot of hurtful things that day.


I  walked back home from school that day like a Zombie, the questions I had in my mind were "why do people hate me so much"?
"Everybody has a friend except me"?
"Maybe I should talk like others so they will like me"?
"Maybe I should just keep eating so much so i won't be so skinny"?

I hate my self!  I screamed.  I  cried and I slept more determined to make everybody like me.

Yes I tried so hard to be everything to everyone by being so cool, I refused to wear the clothes my mum bought me and will always go for the shorter ones I had outgrown. I made sure I saved enough money to get 10naira fish roll for my new crew. It was so cool! During the break period I stopped playing football that I loved so much and began to hang with the cool girls for school gossip. I stopped answering questions in class I didn't want to make everyone feel i was too confident. I  was just everyone else, I wasn't me.

 On a fateful day I was very sick in school, I was running temperature. A nurse came and attended to me. After school I needed someone to take me home, help me carry my bag and ensure I got home safe. I waited for my so called numerous friends to come check up on me after school, no one came. The nurse saw me eagerly looking at the door from the bed where I lay. She came to my side and tapped me gently "No one is coming dear, you have no friends".  I remember walking home with my heavy bag of books on my back, the nurse couldn't walk the long distance to my house. I kept walking so sluggishly and just regretting my recent actions (I neglected my siblings, stopped walking younger kids home, I missed my football friends new escapades, I stopped being serious in class). The weight of my recent experience was so heavy upon me. I couldn't make the journey home, a good man saw me sitting on a pavement along the road and helped me home.  This experience I do not forget in a hurry. I was just 9 when this happened.

So many times people bend us towards themselves, they make us see reasons why we shouldn't be ourselves. They make us hate our lives and make us feel we are useless. Truth is, people who make a difference in life are people who are ready to be themselves always. Just take a good look at the world, it is constantly telling you who you should be. Do your self a favor always remember who you are. Don't be a social chameleon trying to be all things to all people.

People who make a difference are not always clapped for or cheered on by a crowd of enthusiastic fans at first, people laugh at them, mock them and sometimes even make them see themselves as fools. The world is using all those kicks and blows to make you feel like you are nothing just like every other person. Everyone is answering different questions life throws at them don't answer other peoples own. Be you always.
If we all shine our lights the way we are supposed to, the world will be a special place so full of light and darkness will certainly have no place.
BE A LIGHT BEARER, DARE TO BE DIFFERENT.