What if the very thing that made you feel different… is actually what makes you special? 🎮

Let me set the scene for you. Eight cousins crowded in a tiny room, sat on a tiny bed, crowded around an even tinier TV. Now, the purpose of their gathering, Super Mario Bros. made for the Nintendo Wii. You might share a similar memory, whether it was days ago, months ago, or decades ago. But childhood works in funny ways. And today I stand in front of you recounting my childhood game like some ancient folk tale. The truth is, as much as I hate to admit, Mario and video games have taught me more than anything about appreciating my youth. Lessons which I'd like to share with you today. Now, how many of us at a certain point in our lives have felt like childhood was a race, one that we were losing? Acceptance and inclusion is something we all undeniably want to feel, but sometimes having unique interests can bring us away from that. Example, truth be told, nobody in my school owns a Wii. It's an ancient console. So, because of this, you could probably predict how conversations with me about gaming went. Before the word Wii had left my mouth, we had moved on and we were talking about Clash of Clans. Now, it's hard to believe, but Clash of Clans was genuinely all the rage at the time. Now, the annoying thing about it was that it was a community-based game. So, whoever played it also talked about it. Now, my mother had read one Google review and had come to the conclusion that it was demonic and it would corrupt my mind. So, I was faced with a problem. I wasn't included in these conversations. That seems so trivial, right? But I wasn't a kid who got to make friends easily. I was introverted and I had at most five friends or less than that. So as a result, I started to grow this sort of resentment towards my ancient old console and the little Italian plumber game. I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was doing things just a little different. Yet, I was paying the ultimate price of loneliness. I'm willing to bet that some of us feel the same. In fact, I'm willing to bet that there is at least one thing, and I want you to think of it now, that you did different from everybody else growing up. It could have been a special food that you ate, a unique way that you ate it, a an obscure sport that you played, or just like genuinely enjoying a subject at school. Whatever it was, you might like you might look back on it now and think, "Man, I was weird.