Be True To Yourself

I spent some time with my 8-year-old niece recently and Taylor Swift came on the radio.  She quickly said that she hated Taylor Swift.  I told her that I admired lots of things about Taylor and liked her.  My niece quickly added that her friend group of five girls all hate Taylor Swift, so there is no way that she can like her. When I pressed for details, she admitted to liking some songs, but that the social risk was too great.  I am sure we can remember back to being pressured by our friends, when our sole goal was often to fit in. When I asked her if she thought that maybe other girls were secretly admiring Taylor also and that perhaps her admitting would give others the confidence to offer a different opinion.  That was a flat refusal, the power of peers just to strong in this age group.  I guess for us, we need to check in that we are not still carrying some 8-year-old programming about needing to fit in or play it small or hide parts of ourselves.  A little double check to ensure that if we say we like a certain kind of eggs that its because we do, not because our partner does, I may have got that from an old Julia Roberts movie.  Are there still parts of us that we have not re-examined to ensure that we are being absolutely true to what we want, need and love, its worth a double check.