From his sextuple platinum album Plus (+) to his Spotify record-breaking album Divide (÷), Ed Sheeran has continued to mesmerize us with his one-of-a-kind melodies paired with lyrically perfect execution. With the raving success that Sheeran has seen in recent years, selling out worldwide concerts within minutes and gaining groupies by the millions, it’s hard to imagine a time when he wasn’t the world’s favorite little Gingerbread Man.
But the multi-platinum singer portrayed his beginnings in quite a different light at the “American Institute for Stuttering’s Freeing Voices Changing Lives Benefit Gala.”
As if one “very” wasn’t enough, Sheeran opened in saying, “I was a very, very, very weird child.”
“I had a port-wine stain birthmark on my face that I got lasered off when I was very young; one day, they forgot to put the anesthetic on, and ever since then, I had a stutter. I also had very big, blue NHS glasses.”
He of ALL people knows what it feels like to be different from the rest.
In fact, from his fiery red hair to his modest attire and old beat-up guitar, Ed Sheeran is a man who has made a mark for himself by being different and refusing to succumb to the pressures of “fitting in.”
“Most of the people that are successful started life off as a weird kid with no friends,” he remarked.
After sharing how he got rid of his stutter by memorizing music, Sheeran assured the younger audience that stuttering or any other quirk for that matter is nothing to be ashamed of. Rather, those oddities are the things that allow you to leave your unique footprint on the world in a way that only you can do.
“Even if you have quirks and weirdness, you shouldn’t be worried about that,” he shared. “Just be yourself because there’s no one in the world that can be a better you than you, and if you try to be the cool kid from class you’ll end up being very boring.”
The singer closed with a simple yet endearing charge to his fellow weirdos and misfits:
“Be yourself. Embrace your quirks. Being weird is a wonderful thing.”
In our culture running rampant with bullying, mean girls and cookie-cutter cool cliques, these are precisely the words that need to be ingrained into this generation of children.
Remember, God didn’t make any mistakes when he crafted the uniquely beautiful thing that is you:
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.” ~Psalm 139:13
May the weird kids be the ones who change this world for the better.
Hear the rest of Ed’s powerful message in the video below.
