Encourage Yourself To Be Exactly Who You Are Meant To Be.

I am 5ft 3in, I have tanned skin, my body is curvy, and my hair is really thin. I have a very difficult character, I get angry and mad easily, I am one of those people who always thinks that they are right, and I was born in Mexico.

This probably could sound stupid and irrelevant, but those used to be my weak spots and my insecurities. Some of these could mean nothing, but others were really hard to deal with when I was growing up.

I know it still doesn’t make a lot of sense, so I will tell you some stories so I can make my point clear.

I was born and raised Mexican, and I love it. I am beyond proud of my language, my land, and my people. I know about all the bad things that have happened here, as well as the poor decisions that our government constantly makes, but being Mexican has never been a problem or something that I was ashamed of.

A few years ago, before I started college, I had the opportunity to live in the United States for 18 months. I got to meet a lot of people, and every time I told them where I was from, I always got questions like, is the drug problem really big? Can you get shot in the streets? Are there people living in the streets? Do you ride a monkey to get to school?

At first, it was a little funny to see that we all believe everything we see in the movies, but as time went on, I got so tired of it. I was even feeling ashamed of knowing that the big picture of my country that everyone painted in their heads was not our amazing beaches, our colonial architecture, and all of our beautiful history. All that seemed to matter was the corruption, the poorness, and the insecurity, to the point where I no longer wanted to tell people where I was coming from.

Once I was back, I was obviously happy. However, I wasn’t feeling safe, or maybe I was just finding a new plan to get out of the country as fast as I could. I began to constantly judge and wonder how my life would have been if I were born somewhere else. I felt insecure when I was traveling around the world, and I blamed my whole country.

It took me about two years to realize that I wasn’t taking the high road. I was living that awful picture from the movies. So, instead of feeling bad about it, I started to think of a way to help my country do better things, to help out some people, and try to be the change.

Being Mexican was a fact that I would never be able to change, so instead of hating it, I started to embrace it. This could sound like a silly or lame story, but so does being short or curvy; that’s who we are, that’s how we were supposed to be. We have to be proud and happy because, if we don’t love and embrace ourselves, who is going to do it? If you don’t like something, change it and love it.