I remember how old I was when I realised that trying to be something I wasn’t, was not going to work out. I was 14 and I was playing handball with my mates during lunch. At the time I was at an all-boys school out in Penrith so the vibe was very rowdy. If your ball was hit too hard and escaped your reach, it wasn’t uncommon for an older boy to kick or chuck the shit out of it in the opposite direction. It wasn’t personal; it was just for their own amusement.

This particular time I chased down a stray ball and managed to rip it away from a burly year 9 kid. I remember him saying something smart. Now you have to keep in mind, I was a skinny, lanky, awkward young teen with tangled black hair and a voice that broke every sentence. It was safe to say that I wasn’t getting any girls and being a nice kid was probably my only redeeming quality.

Unfortunately, this one time I thought I’d be a tough guy and say something smart back. I can’t remember much of what I said, but I do remember walking away with a smug look on my face thinking I was top shit.

I was walking back to my mates when I felt a large ball like object smash into to the side of my head. It splattered everywhere… dazed I looked down to see a half-eaten apple rolling down onto the ground. My face went red with embarrassment and to this day, I still remember the vivid image of all the other boys, including my best friends, laughing hysterically while I hurried back onto the court.

The apple was a reality check, and despite being completely unnecessary and kind of cruel, it taught me a valuable lesson: never try and be something you’re not.

At the time I wasn’t a tough, edgy kid that could take on anyone. I knew it, the burly year 9 kid knew it, and so did whoever threw that apple at my head (probably the same kid). Don’t get me wrong, I always worked and wanted to be more… to be tougher, to be sterner and to stick up for myself. I realised early on that being true to myself was more important than playing a fake version of who I think I should be. I don’t think I ever wanted to be that guy, but because of the different personalities around me, somehow that version of Nickin seemed very appealing to me at the time.

That experience may have taught me a valuable lesson, but it would take years for it to actually make any effect on my life. The last two years of high school and the first couple of years at uni exposed me to different characters and types of people from all walks of life, something a large majority of you all reading this can relate to. No longer was I in a bubble of the same types of people, but rather a cliché melting pot that was the very definition of diversity….and just like a melting pot, the wrong ingredient can make it taste bland.

The only way it seemed to all work was when I chose to let go of any idea of who I should be and just start being myself. It didn’t matter how I looked or sounded, but rather whether my personality shone in conversation and interactions on a daily basis. You can’t be a functioning and interesting person without being true to yourself, and that sometimes means wearing your insecurities on your sleeve and accepting them.

An example of this is classically explained through how you look. I remember man buns and beards were a massive deal a year or two ago. I’m ashamed to say that I tried to grow one. Not because I liked it, but more because I wanted to “fit in”. It wasn’t too long before I realised how much of a bad idea that was. First of all, my hair didn’t grow the way I wanted it to, and second of all, I hated the feeling of having too much hair around my head in general. I already had a beard at this point, something I was incredibly proud of, but with the added hair around my face, I knew for a fact that it wasn’t going to work out.

I made the mistake of doing something I knew I was not going to like. I was building this weird image of what I wasn’t.

The façade we may walk around with can be useful at times. Those that say that you should suffer in silence are not always wrong, but there comes a time where you have to realise that it is not a real representation of who you are.

As corny as it may sound there really isn’t anyone else like you on the planet. Other people may have the same interests, the same habits and the same tendencies…they may even look like you, but no one is ever going to be exactly the same as you.

Even if you try to be something else, life tends to either swiftly or violently make you realise that it isn’t going to work out. Whether that be in the form of your own epiphany or an apple that hits you directly in the head.

Frustrations boil over, the world starts to work against you and the people around you, if they are smart enough, will notice the cracks in your character that will most definitely start to form.

It was, is, and always will be a better story if you just accept who you are. No one can take that away from you, not the experiences that you have and not anything that you have achieved… because the strongest you will ever be is when you’re being you.