I’m a recovering people-pleaser.

There. I said it.

In the past six months, though, I’ve been forcing myself to be ok with potentially making someone upset. I’ve been forcing myself to be comfortable in my own skin. To not hide my double chin. You’ve seen my InstaStories. You know what I mean.

Essentially, I have been learning to become more of myself whether someone else sees that or not. Yesterday, my brother sweetly posted a picture of me on social media and someone commented that I look like Mandela.

I know you’re laughing at this point. It’s funny, right?

But my immediate reaction when I saw that comment was to look at the picture and all the flaws on my face glared back at me. But, see how the Universe is working on me: That anxiety-inducing feeling of “woah, someone just said I look like Dibz” lasted about two seconds.

Because then I laughed. It’s funny. I’ll take it. But more importantly, I know, for sure, that in the past, I have said the Mandelas could be my family. Even the OG, Nomzamo. Must be the Xhosa in me.

However comma that wack reaction and dope recovery was a lesson for me. It taught me that I’m getting better at seeing the opinions of others and not allowing them to cause me to shrink.

The point is: you can’t please everybody. And it’s a trap to try. So if you haven’t been giving yourself a chance to be your authentic self, you can start now.

As always, you don’t have to take my word for it. But Whoopi with the good sneakers summed it up more eloquently than I could:

“The price of being yourself is other people’s angst about you being yourself.”

And if you know who I can speak to in order to get my face on a R100 note, holla at the kid.