"This I Believe"

Recently, I've been reading a book my parents got me for Christmas called "This I Believe." It's a collection of essays from well-known people; short little things that detail their personal philosophies on life. It's a pretty cool book, I'm pretty sure it's through NPR, which is how my mom heard about it.

This morning, I was reading it in study hall and I got kind of tired of reading, so I decided to write one of my own. I started thinking of all the things I believe in: friendship; small, lovely, irreplaceable moments; love. Then I realized that there's something that I believe in that encompasses all of that. This was the end product. It's quite a bit shorter than the essays in "This I Believe," but I'm pretty sure I said all I wanted to say:


"I believe in the beauty of idiosyncracies. Perfection doesn't exist. There are no real measured standards for perfection. I love my family and friends because they're weird. It is their adorable quirks that make me like them.

A few nights ago, one friend burst into tears because she couldn't understand why someone would put gummy bears in their ice cream. Another good friend, we have come to realize, does this thing where she keeps taking until she gets a laugh out of somebody. She also deeply fears sticky fingers and awkward social situations.

We all have these irrational fears that we mock each other mercilessly because of. For instance, I
have an inexplicable fear of tomato seeds. I also have a friend with a severe fear of male genitalia, as well as a friend who fears pregnant women. One of my friends refuses to take free samples of anything because he has somehow convinced himself that they are infested with AIDS. This is the same friend who can't eat things in even numbers (I honestly believed he was making that up when he first told me about it, but there are so many rules and exceptions that there's no way he could have just made it up).

It is the imperfections that make someone endearing to me. Their quirks give them individuality and the fact that there is only one of them in the entire world population makes me feel incredibly lucky to have them in my life.

Life shouldn't be about conforming; rather it should be about celebrating and sharing what makes us unique. There are friends I have that I love who have bizarre obsessions with somewhat obscure and often British TV shows. I also have a friend who comes up with really random, awesome metaphors for life that never fail to amuse me or get me thinking.

By hiding our quirks from the world, we are doing everyone - including ourselves - a grave disservice. Part of living is being brave enough to share our idiosyncracies with them people around us. Chances are, our quirks make people love us even more. I can only hpe that my friends love me in spite of my fear of tomato seeds, or my penchant for petting hair, or my fascination with sappy cabaret songs.

I believe it's those funny little quirks that make us adorable, and only the ones who really love us can accept."