“Be the change you would like to see in the world.” I spotted the phrase at the gym, splattered diagonally across the back of a young woman’s shirt in a bright and solid red font. She was on the Stairmaster in front of mine, and the quote seemed to glow with every step she took.  For all twenty-five minutes of my workout, I couldn’t stop staring, and those words stared right back, unflinching and slightly accusing.

            I was nearing the end of my sophomore year and from an outsider’s perspective, I was living the teenager’s dream. I was the star on my football and track team, I had a gorgeous girlfriend, and I partied with the most popular kids in school. However, there was an agonizing turmoil brewing underneath my perfect appearance. The truth was, I was a gay teenager and I hated football, didn’t enjoy partying, and didn’t really love my girlfriend. I had rejected my real sexuality, and as a result, was consumed by self-loathing. I carried a heavy guilt from living the life that people wanted me to live, not that life I wanted for myself.

            I went straight home from the gym that day, too troubled by my sudden self-awareness to do my usual weight lifting routine.  That stupid quote was singed into my conscience as both an accusing finger and an encouraging smile. It reminded me of the countless stereotypes about gay people, the homophobic phrases I heard at school, and how I was a contributor to both these problems. It also reminded me that I had the power and position to combat these problems, that I could disprove the homosexual schema and show other closeted teens they weren’t strange, weren’t defective, and weren’t alone. Those words, which thanks to Google I learned were spoken by Mahatma Gandhi, made me realize that I couldn’t expect others to act if I wasn’t willing to do so myself. Leading by example finally made sense, and I knew that from the next day forward my life wouldn’t be the same.

            In the morning, however, I didn’t parade into school a brand new person as one might expect. My new goal was incredibly daunting, and I went about it slowly, but with deliberate steps. Taking the quote to heart, I visualized what I would want somebody else in my position to do, and I starting writing them down in a notebook. There were dozens of things on my list, and I went about them I order of difficulty.  I came out to my best friend first, then my brother. I stopped using phrases like “That’s so gay” and dropped the insult “faggot”.  In one of the scariest and most proud days of my life I took part in the day of silence (a national youth movement protesting the harassment, prejudice, and discrimination faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies).  

            By the middle of my junior year, I was living a completely different life. I gave up football, and focused on track and field where my passion truly lied. I joined my school’s Gay-Straight Alliance club and other clubs I was too anxious to join before. My self-esteem recovered and I began to realize that being gay didn’t make my accomplishments any less valuable. Other than the loss of a few friends, I also realized that the majority of people around me supported my new life.

            I am now in my senior year, and glad to say happier than ever. People sometimes ask me if I ever wished I was born straight and I tell them that my life would definitely have been easier and less complicated, but it’s the suffering and change I endured that made me into the person I am today, a person that I fully accept and love. I have finally left my old path and adopted a new one, a path where I make decisions based on my own standards, not anybody else’s.