Hi there, it's DJB and in this video I'm going to talk about something a little more personal and I think important for the younger generation of this hobby. I am obviously not a teenager or a child anymore. I've definitely grown and matured over the last few years, but I did struggle as a kid, teenager and young adult with who I am and my interest. And I think this happens with everybody a little bit in their own way. In general, kids are mean. And going to school is really hard and especially if you're not considered normal. Kids and bullies, they target people who aren't normal. The term normal, what does it really mean? I mean, what really makes you normal? But I think when you really like something, whether that be video games or horses or sports or animals or clothes or makeup or or fancy cars or whatever it is, if you like something a lot and you're really passionate about it, people will target on that. And they'll say, why do you like this thing so much? Why are you obsessing about this thing so much? You should stop obsessing about this because it's weird. And I hate that about people and society because it doesn't allow you to flourish, it doesn't allow you to be unique and special and have something to give the world. It makes it so you need to feel like anything you're passionate about or that really excites you shouldn't and you should stop, you should quit because it's weird and you look like a child and you're wasting your time. I think this happens in the model horse world. I mean, it happened for me 100%. I was a closet collector, I guess you could say. I didn't talk about my models to anyone. I didn't tell people, yeah, I collect horses, I collect fake plastic horses because they would think that was weird and I was told it was weird. You know, the few people I confided in, they said, why do you do this? It's dumb. My family was always really good. They always supported it and they've always been, you know, my best friends in my backbone, but out in the world, people take it a little differently. I definitely had a group of friends that weren't particularly supportive and I used to get really excited about my model stuff, about my whatever I was doing and I remember one specific friend in this one instance. I had ordered a bunch of sleet choices online and it was this big box. It was going to be coming to me and I was really excited about it. It takes a while to ship things here in Canada so it was going to take about a week and so I was really excited about this. It was what was on my mind and having friends and this was my one particular really close friend. I thought, well, I can confide in her and tell her about these horses and be excited about it. And so I was going on about this package and how I was excited and they would be coming soon and I don't really remember the context. Maybe I was going on about it too much. Maybe every day I was obsessing and every five minutes I was bringing it up. I don't really remember. I don't think I was because that's not my personality but I was mentioning it to her. And she reached a point where she turned to me and she said, Darren, I don't care. I don't care about your models coming in the mail. Stop talking about it. And to that lake kind of was like, okay, so I'm alone here. This is my thing. I can't talk about it. I can't be excited about it. They don't want to hear it. So from that point on, I just didn't talk about my models to anyone. I couldn't. Now, no, none of the friends in my life were interested. None of the people wanted to know. I had close people to me, look at it on the wall or look at it in my room and be like, this is a waste of money. This is a waste of time. You are a child. This is childish. There's girls who want to make, you know, little model horse series or they want to elect fake horses and show them at model horse shows, but they're scared that they are going to be bullied for it or if someone finds out they're going to think they're weird and it's going to downward spiral into something really terrible. So I understand and I understand it's really, really hard and it took me a lot of growing up to understand that it doesn't matter and what people tell you doesn't matter. And if someone thinks it's stupid but you think it's great, you should think it's great and you should keep talking about it and you should be excited about it and you shouldn't let that person telling you, oh, this is stupid. Bring you down because it's not stupid. I can assure you it is not stupid because all these people that told me don't talk to me about this. This is childish and stupid and a waste of money and a waste of time. Well, this has turned out to be one of the biggest achievements of my life so far. This could turn into a career. This is more success I've had than anything I've done before. So if I listened to these people and said, yeah, they're right. It's a waste of money. It's a waste of time. And though even though I love it, I'm going to quit. Even though I love it, I'm not going to share. I wouldn't be here. Those people that tell you, I don't care. Those people probably aren't your real friends. And if it's your family, that's a different situation because that really just sucks and there's really stupid family in the world. And it makes me upset that family is not as supportive and friendly as they should be. I understand that's a lot harder, but when you leave your family eventually, it should get easier for you. I can assure you that this friend that told me, don't talk to me about this. We're no longer friends because the biggest part of me is that I love animals and I love horses and I love doing art with horses and being around horses and feeling my life with horses. So if you're telling me, I don't care about your love for this thing, then we're probably not going to be friends. And that's exactly what happened. And then I went to school. I went to university and I was scared to tell people. I didn't want to tell people that I had a collection of 200 model horses at home because at that point I was 20. Like you shouldn't be doing that at 20. Yet here I was doing it at 20. It kind of slowly slipped out somewhere online in university and granted I was going to an art school. So everybody's a little bit weird in art school, but these people were not telling me it was stupid. They were interested. They were infatuated by it. They were going, what are you doing? With your time and your money and you have that many really. So they were surprised and they were mesmerized by this this hobby that I had. Then I started working and I had friends that were asking every day. They were curious about the next custom or the next one that I bought or like where I was taking it. What was happening with it? They were genuinely interested. When I met my boyfriend it was a completely different realm than anything I thought I've had before. He was the first person to like be genuinely interested and ask question and want to know more and want to see more and he wasn't weirded out by the fact that I had this huge collection and it wasn't something that was scaring him away from the relationship or me as a person. So there are people out there that will be okay with it but they're a little harder to find and there's probably a community for anything that you're interested in online and that's the other thing is the online community is so abundant. So I don't think ruling out your passion should be a thing and if there's people telling you don't do this thing because it's weird that's their problem and not your problem. The world needs more people who own it and say I am weird and I love these things and it's exciting and if you think it's a waste of time and money let me show you it's not. You love horses a lot or you love basketball a lot or you love I don't know whatever it is a lot. At least you're not doing drugs and getting drunk every night and throwing your life away in other ways. At least you're dedicating your time to something that really matters and is positive. It's hard and I understand and I've been there and it's not just as easy as saying it it's a little more complicated and I know that. It's definitely not impossible. Thank you so much for watching and hang in there if you're struggling with this.