Be Yourself. Be Your Best. | Munachismo Okafor | TEDxAIS Abuja Youth

The speaker introduces a poem about emerging from a multitude of "mirrored shadows" and the "prison of belonging" to become an unshackled individual, with "sunlight kissing the darkness away." This poem was inspired by a long struggle with identity and individuality, a common experience, particularly among young people, that the speaker now openly admits. As a poet and storyteller, the speaker recounts one of their first stories, about being an 11-year-old tomboy in a new school. The untold part of this story reveals a scared girl with few friends and a visual impairment that people made fun of. Tired of bullying, the speaker adopted a tough tomboy persona to deter teasing, which initially worked. However, after the teasing stopped, a new persona was adopted to gain friends, involving pretending to like sports and video games, following pop culture, and learning popular song lyrics. This also worked, leading to more interesting conversations and friendships, but at the cost of time spent cultivating these false identities. The speaker emphasizes that crafting a good story takes time, requiring a plot, characters, research, and believability. This effort was applied to creating numerous personas, such as spending hours watching football games to craft commentary, even though the speaker didn't enjoy them. All this time spent perfecting these characters and telling stories thought to be desired by others was time taken away from self-discovery. The speaker lost themselves in these adopted stories, unable to differentiate between adopted values and interests and their genuine ones. Poetry became a crucial part of the journey to self, as it was the first interest adopted purely out of personal desire. It helped the speaker untangle the web of personas and tell a story that was genuinely about themselves, with them as the main character. Through poetry, a sense of community was found, highlighting the interconnectedness of human experience. The speaker advises that everyone's life is their own story, and they deserve to be the main character, deciding what is important to them. It's important not to force oneself to fit into a space where they don't belong, but rather to find or create their own place where their people will find them. The speaker concludes by encouraging listeners to tell their story as it is, assuring them that someone will be willing to read it, and to remember, "I am enough. I am simply I am."