To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. —Oscar Wilde

Love yourself. Love the things that make you you.Your values and talents and memories.Your clothes, your nose, your woes. If you love yourself, you can jump into your life from a springboard of self-confidence. If you love yourself, you can say what you want to say, go where you want to go. The world can be a tough place, and some of the billions of people out there will try to knock you down. Don’t join them. Do things that make you proud, then take pride in what you do. And in who you are.

Who are you anyway? What makes you you? How are you like your siblings and neighbors and friends? How are you different? If you were your own secret admirer, what would you most admire?

“My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself,” Oscar Wilde wrote, “is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.” Keep pursuing your individuality. Keep being yourself. Becoming yourself. It can be comforting to dress and act like everyone else. But it is grander to be different, to be unique, to be you. I’m the only me in the whole wide world.

There is always one true inner voice. Trust it. —Gloria Steinem

Sometimes it’s hard to know who you are and what you want and whom you like and why you like that person.The answers change because you’re changing. Growing. But deep inside, you are you.You were you as a baby, you were you as a kid, and you are you right now. “Let me listen to me and not to them,” wrote Gertrude Stein. It makes sense to consider the advice and opinions of other people. But don’t let their noise drown out your inner voice. And don’t let the way you sometimes talk or behave in front of others make you lose sight of who you are when you are alone, when you are most you.

“You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself,” aviator Beryl Markham cautioned. Get acquainted with yourself. Tune in to the dreams you have by day and by night. Blend in when you choose to, but appreciate what sets you apart. “The more I like me, the less I want to pretend to be other people,” said Jamie Lee Curtis.

Anybody can be one of the crowd.