Response: What not to wear?

Have you ever been stared at for wearing something that you would never wear before, or even laughed at? Well I got to experience that first hand. For a class assignment in our English 110 class, everyone had to go to Savers and buy something that they feel they would never be caught dead wearing. For me, this was a neon blue hat, not just a regular baseball cap, but one of those big oversized trucker hats that you see all the hip hop artists and rap people wearing in today’s world. Really, if you ask anyone that knows me they would tell you that I would never wear that. Else they would just make fun of me for actually wearing it. Probably one of my top 5 worries is having people talk about me behind my back or making fun of me. It’s always on my mind and I really try to ignore it most times, but it usually ends up getting the better of me. So right of the bat I could tell this would be a difficult assignment.

As I was walking to my class, wearing the big blue hat, I noticed some looks like “He isn’t black, he shouldn’t be wearing that” or “Oh, he is just acting gangster.” At least I thought that is what kind of looks I was getting. Usually with me I over analyze everything and make it a bigger deal then it really is. As I was walking, I could feel the heat radiating off my face, letting people know that I was embarrassed. Also, being the hat was a size too small for me probably didn’t help the fact either. I tried pushing through it though, I just said why do they care that I am wearing this, I can wear what I want to. This, being a really hard thing to do, because you have that little voice in your head that says “They are looking at you” or “They are talking about you”. I think it was hard because I never try to go out of the so called “norm” and be different. I am so worried what people will think of me that I just try to make everyone happy, which can be a real setback some times.

Even though this assignment was a difficult one I think it is a really good one. It really gets you out of your comfort level and makes you try different things. I always heard that you enjoy life so much better when you don’t care about what people think about you. I am glad we had a chance to do this because this made me more conscious about what I am doing with my life and that doing this little activity was a starting point for me to keep improving and being less worried of what people think about me.