Your accent is a map of everywhere your family has been. Don’t sand it down to fit in.

An accent is a record of where people before you lived and what they spoke at home. Flattening it to fit a room is usually about safety, and it works, and it also costs something you cannot get back easily. The people who make you feel it should be smoothed out are telling you about themselves. You can be understood clearly without sounding like everyone else.

Notice this week where you switch and whether you wanted to. Keeping it in one place where you normally would not is enough to start with.