Taylor Swift Clean Speech- Manchester June 24,2015

“So just from this crowd alone I have seen a lot of people who I know have come from places other than Manchester, people from all over the place; I’m seeing like flags from other countries and it’s just really amazing to know that you want to travel all that way and like get out your passport so that you can come and see me play a show. That’s just incredible and it’s so cool that, like, I look out and I’m seeing all these different people from different parts of the world, different backgrounds, we all have different interests, different accents; but still, uh, we wouldn’t be in this room together if we didn’t have something in common and I think that I know what that is. I think that what we have in common is that when life gets really hard, or when we feel great amounts of pain or when you feel great amounts of joy; we turn to music and that’s why we are all here in this place. Speaking of great amounts of pain, from talking to you so much, I’ve never been so sure that it is treacherous and difficult to be happy in 2015. I think that navigating your life, navigating your self-esteem, your self-image, I think that’s harder than it’s ever been before. I think it’s because every day, and trust me; I love the internet, okay? I love the good parts of the internet, but there’s also this dark side of how we are all so, it’s so available to us to see the highlight reel of someone else’s life. All the pictures of when they look the most awesome, and when they’re on some great trip, or they’re having the best time ever at a party, and in your own life you’re getting a behind the scenes, not just the highlight reel, you’re seeing when you get out of bed in the morning and you’re like, “Oh God, this is not a good hair day. This is not gonna be good today. How are we gonna fix this?”, or you feel like you don’t know where you’re supposed to go with your life, or you just went through the most horrible sense of rejection, because someone, you know, spread a rumor about you that wasn’t true. You’re seeing all these angles of your own life, and then you compare it to other people’s lives when you don’t see what they’re going through, you just see the good parts of what they’re going through, am I right? And so, I say to you, when you start to compare yourselves to other people, please change the channel in your mind to something else, because I think that when it comes to how we see ourselves, other people are really mean, but we’re really mean to ourselves and so it’s easy to get confused, and we you do get confused and you start feeling like you’re not special, or you’re not different, or you have nothing important to say. We all feel like that sometimes, but what I want you to right now is, if there’s one thing you remember from tonight, remember what I’m about to say. You need to look into the mirror in the morning and not tell yourself that you’re not special, or you’re not good enough, you’re not pretty, or you’re not awesome. I’m gonna tell you right now the things you actually are not. These are the things you really are not. You are not the opinion of somebody who doesn’t know you. You are not damaged goods just because you made mistakes in your life. You are not going nowhere just because you haven’t gotten where you want to go yet. Those are the things you actually are not. Now, I want tell you what you are. You are your own definition of beautiful and worthwhile, that’s what you are. You are someone who is wiser because you made mistakes, not damaged, wiser. You are somebody who could be at this moment, right now, sitting there, there, there, there, you are going through whatever you’re going through whatever in your life that’s stressing you out, or confusing you, or making you upset. But you got out of bed and put on an awesome outfit, and you came to a concert and now we’re all having the best time ever on a Wednesday night. You know it’s not about perfection; it’s about just getting on with things sometimes. Sometimes you just get credit for getting up and going on with things, and you don’t have to do it perfectly. I think that we mistake our mistakes for damage, and we think other people judge us for them, but I want you to know the way that I see mistakes is, they don’t make you damaged, they make you clean.”