I decided to do this little post because Mike Shinoda's latest blog post grabbed my attention. I don't know if you guys read it but long story short, he was invited with Rob and some other folks to talk on a PTTOW conference. Among a lot of things, Mike talked about the situation we're all facing today. 

What caught my attention the most though, was that he mentioned that we are constantly receiving messages that try to grab our attention. Everyone's trying to find the best way to put their own thing out there but what's really missing is authenticity and the courage to get out there and present your own thing and support it. And he's super right about it.

I had this little project at school...the teacher told us to try and be as authentic as we can and make it as real as possible; like put our own little thing in it (it was a project about our influences and inspirations). To get to the point, presentation day came. Everyone was showing off their work and explaining why that certain thing or that guy inspires them but when it was my turn I was kinda ... lost because I hadn't done what everyone else had. I took a deep breath and presented mine. What I got? Tons of yelling and shouting from my teacher because my thing was different than what the others have done. I felt pretty embarrassed. And not just that, I was bad criticized for my work and for claiming that music is the most passionate thing that keeps me going and gives me strength to move on and because I mentioned art as a way of showing feelings and emotions words can't describe. And I come to the question, weren't we supposed to be authentic and say our own thing? Just because everyone else was talking about (mostly) how religion affects people and all that, I got yelled at for supporting my opinion and saying something different.

Mike once said that we gotta learn to take criticism because it's supposed to make up better but do we have to accept it when it's bad? Just because we're different than the others and we don't belong in that big maze?  

I don't know about you but I'm sick of people telling me what I have to do and how I have to do it. I'm sick of being told how I should be...each one of us has it's own personally and that makes us stand out from each other. It's like their telling us all to go follow a certain thing and be the same. Nobody wants that. . 

To sum up, I believe it's better to stick with your own thing because that makes you special. And yeah be authentic, authenticity is the key!  And as Mike says "be true to yourself and don’t compromise who you are and what you’re putting out".