I don’t want to be judged for my hair. I don’t want to be judged for my makeup. Or my clothes or my jewelry. I want to be judged for my hands.

Not that there’s anything spectacular about my hands. But my hands are probably the main thing that defines me. Because my hands create.

It’s a remarkable feeling you get when you realize you’ve created something—an object, an idea, a feeling, anything—because it couldn’t have come into existence without you. Nobody else in the entire world thinks in the perfectly exact way you do. Anything that you think, anything that you make, is unique.

I love my hands. My hands are what I write with. My fingers are what relay the tiny ideas in my head to a keyboard or piece of paper. My hands play the piano. Each little finger touches a different key, producing a collection of tiny notes that combine and weave together to form a musical masterpiece. My hands compose their own music, new sounds that nobody else came up with. Even when I dislike the things I’ve written, the things I’ve composed, the things I’ve played, at least I can say that they’re mine.

Hands convert thoughts to actions to creations. They are quite possibly the most important part of all of us. So don’t judge me for what I look like. Judge me for my hands and the things I create. Because our ideas and creations are far more stunning than exterior appearances.

So create something beautiful.