Since I was a kid, I never really quite fit in. Back then I wanted to be cool but just didn’t fit the bill of what others labeled as that. For years I sat alone in crowded cafeterias getting picked on. That was until I became a chameleon.
Chameleons are a type of lizard that can change their colors to blend in with their habit around them. It’s usually done as a way of protecting themselves from predators. I have often identified with this type of creature because of how I learned to change my own colors to hide from the predators I’ve endured throughout my life. In my grammar school years, those predators were the bullies that picked on me day in and day out. In college, they were some of my fraternity brothers who liked to make jokes on my behalf. And as an adult, it was most of the people I got into relationships with. In all of those periods of my life, I found ways to adapt who I was, what I believed in, what I looked like, how I talked, and more, just to fit in so I wouldn’t be preyed upon by any of those predators. But all for what price? I lost sight of myself and who I really was inside.
Changing my colors to avoid all those predators throughout my life included doing many things that I look back on today with shock that I even allowed myself to go there. While it started simply with me changing my clothing styles and hairdo back in my teenage years, it progressed to heavily drinking and sampling various illegal drugs, and then later it involved giving myself away sexually to people I really didn’t want to be with. I even went so far as to deny God was ever going to help me heal at one point in the chameleon phases of my life.
Being this chameleon may have helped me to avoid many confrontations from those predators in life but it also led me to not liking myself very much. With God’s help today, I am trying to not change my colors anymore to fit in with those around me. Unfortunately, that’s led me right back to how it was when I was that young kid sitting alone in that cafeteria getting picked on.
I don’t know why I’ve always been such an easy target for other’s people jokes but the one thing I can say is that at least I’m not being a chameleon anymore to avoid them. It has allowed me to truly learn to like myself a lot more. Even better, the few friends in my life today embrace me for me and appreciate my individuality without having to pick on me. I think that’s a whole lot better than having crowds of people around me who like me because I’m fitting what their image of cool is.
I encourage everyone to stay away from living in The Chameleon Effect. It will only lead you away from being the special and unique person that God brought you here to be. In the long run, while you may not have as many friends, you will definitely like yourself a whole lot more and so will the few people that remain by your side.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
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