Read on Twitter
Taylor Swift’s Clean speech: a very necessary thread
So I know looking at this crowd that we have so many people from different places, different backgrounds, or different hobbies.
Also, different insecurities and different fears, different scars, different ghosts.
We have a lot of different people here tonight, but the one thing I do know we all have in common is the fact that when we feel great amounts of joy or great amounts of pain, we turn to music, and that’s why we’re here tonight.
I’m very well aware that it has never been easier to compare yourself to other people and feel like your life falls short.
It’s never been easier than it is in 2015 and every single day, you know I love the internet, we all love the internet, but every single day if you’re having a bad day you can go online and scroll through the highlight reel of someone else’s life.
All of their glossy, shiny, cool-looking memories are readily available for you to see and that’s the highlight reel of their life. But with you, when you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror, all you’re seeing is behind the scenes.
You’re seeing your fears, you’re seeing things you regret, you’re seeing mistakes you’ve made.
You’re seeing things that other people don’t see and so, yeah, people are really mean, but we’re so much more mean to ourselves, aren’t we?
And I think that from talking to you and from you being kind enough to share your lives with me, I know that every single person here tonight has their own set of struggles and things that are bothering them or things that are absolutely terrifying to them at this very moment.
And so, I guess what I’m trying to say to you is, if there’s one thing that you remember from tonight, please let it be this.
Every single time you have a bad day and you’re just telling yourself you’re not cool enough, you’re not pretty enough, or sexy enough, or fun enough, or whatever it is you think you’re not enough of, let me tell you that those things are completely imaginary, they’re not real.
Let me tell you the things that you actually are not. Would you like to hear the things that you actually are not? Alright.
You are not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you.
You are not, in any way, damaged goods if you’ve made mistakes in your life.
You are not going nowhere just because you haven’t figured out exactly where you want to go yet, just because you haven’t reached your final destination.
Alright, let me tell you the things that you actually are.
You are your own definition of beautiful and worthwhile and nobody else’s.
You are smarter, wiser, and stronger because you made mistakes, not damaged.
And most importantly, you are someone who is going through whatever problems and complications life presents itself with right now, but instead of wallowing in those things, you decided to get up and get dressed and come hang out with me and have the best time ever at a concert.
I personally do not think that if you’ve walked through a bunch of rainstorms, and life just keeps raining on you, and you keep feeling like you’re going through these constant storms over and over again...
If you keep going, I don’t think that these kind of thing makes you tarnished or damaged or anything that you’re afraid of makes you.
I happen to think that going through a lot and continuing to go on with your life makes you clean.
