I hate being myself. I want to be someone else, like so and so (a popular movie star) whose ardent fan I am.

Why is fate so cruel? Why was I born this way? I know my reality will never change. Now don’t say anything just to make me feel better because I know I won’t feel better.
Excerpts from a long letter written by a depressed teenager

First, be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. There is nowhere else your life spirit can go, no shelter for the person called you, except in the space of your own heart. There is simply no point trying to be anyone else. There is value only in discovering how deep and wonderful you really are. You waste yourself in the effort to be like another, dissipate the strength you possess and scatter your essence in vain.
The only way to harness the true power of your being is to align yourself with the source of power within, dock your identity to the engine of energy that powers your life. One hundred trillion cells with millions of reactions per second all identifying as “you”, are being controlled by an intelligence that is beyond the capability of your feeble mind to understand. The power of your inner self is unfathomable, mystical and unknowable. Science knows it enough to know it is beyond scientific measure or grasp and so it studies its outer workings without ever having the courage to look at it straight in the eye.
This intelligence is accessible to you. It is you; it is also the thought that you are you. If only you can align yourself to it, feel its presence within and without, silence yourself enough to hear its presence. Only then will you gain an ally so strong and powerful — a friend who can help you set your goal and win in this world.
So if you really want to be a fan of someone, choose your inner being instead of a matinee idol. The movie star only reminds you of who you can never be, and makes you feel secretly miserable. So you worship him as an alter ego to feel slightly better. On the other hand, if ever you can connect with your inner self you will get such an amazing thunderbolt of energy that your life will never be the same again.
And while the surface of your being may not be to your liking — you don’t like the way you look, hate your status in society, deplore your lack of money or opportunity etc., you get the drift — in the depths of your being you are identical to everyone else. You too can carve out your destiny exactly the way you want it. Alternatively, you can continue to be a sobbing youngster full of self-pity and anxiety.
I ask you: Who and what creates your reality? You blinked and bawled and opened your eyes, discovered you were delivered in a slum to a beggar or perchance a newborn darling to a princess in her summer palace. That’s fate and you can’t change that. But everything else after that is subject to change.
Reality is shaped by random forces beyond your reach or grasp but there is surely another source springing from within that has the power to alter your reality. Learn to tap into that source spring and drink deep from its fountain of energy. Before that, first stop sniveling and focus on changing your life.