Who knew expressing yourself could be so hard.
By: Tanisha Singh
Tags: Expression, Growth, Adolescence, Teens, Confidence

Who knew expressing yourself could be so hard.

“Teenagers often express themselves through their attire, haircuts, and the like.” This is what “expressing yourself” is to the youth, as per Dictionary.com. As easy as it may be to show people who you are, I find it difficult to do things as simple as these without thinking someone or the other would judge me.

Throughout this generation teenagers have been showing people who they are through multiple mediums; the most known ones being social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. It seems to me, they have vast amounts of confidence to post whatever they want online without caring much about what other people think or have to say. As an adolescent, I really struggle with doing this sort of stuff.

Most of the time I contemplate on what I want to post on Instagram; almost only focusing on what my followers would think of me, and not having confidence in what I think of myself. I end up assuming the worst of what people would think about me, and creating preconceived notions of their reactions. You could call it “online insecurity” in a way. It’s come to the point where if I post a picture of myself on Instagram one day, I end up deleting said picture the very next day due to overthinking and focusing on insignificant details of the picture that perhaps people might not even care to notice.

Luckily, Twitter is my only escape; my account being a place where I can talk about pretty much anything and everything without caring much about what somebody else has to say. On Twitter I don’t have to feel pressurized into posting a picture just because my friends went ahead and did it on Instagram.

To me self expression comes in the form of fashion, music and writing. You, my friend, are reading a fraction of my thoughts on the literal topic of ‘expression’. To be honest, I love putting outfits together that, I think look good and I would love to show to people what my taste in fashion is like, but wearing those articles of clothing that I managed to put together isn’t very easy for me. ‘What if I look ridiculous?’, ‘What if people think I’m trying too hard?’. These thoughts would constantly eat at my brain, forcing me back into wearing the same jeans and t-shirts that I would wear on a daily basis in the hopes of nobody commenting on my look, which not many would do regardless of how I dress. Music is a whole different arena. I won’t lie, I’m a good singer. Do many people know this about me though? No, they don’t. I bet a lot of people don’t even know I play the piano. If someone were to ask me to sing something, I would simply decline. Sure I would use this as a way to express myself, only if I had the guts and didn’t care the least about what anyone had to think or say about my voice. Overall, I lack the confidence, unlike other kids of my age, to show people who I really am.

Since 2020 is coming to an end, I want to be able to open up more. I want to be able to wear THAT outfit and be able to sing THAT song. It’s not like I’m not capable of doing all of this, It’s not like I never was, and it’s not like I want to or AM going to spend the rest of my life knowing that my true self is locked away in some cage on the inside. It’s just that now, I have to try to use these capabilities to my advantage without having to concentrate on a third person’s input. Maybe, I’ll be able to express myself better in the years to come and maybe, if I’m actually able to do it, it would help me unlock new waypoints in the future and help me go far in life.