On Being Yourself
Regular readers of this blog know that I have been on a personal journey of sorts in the past few years to be more genuine. "To Thine Own Self Be True", a line by Shakespeare has been the theme of my whole life for the past few years, as I have been (trying to) journey from being what I thought others wanted me to be to being who I really am. So – part of that has been starting my own business and running it the way that I want. Another part has been re-connecting with art, writing, feminism, and secular spirituality. I have been holding closer to the friends that help me be true to myself, and letting go of the ones that don’t. I have been taking better care of my health. Finally, I have been working on my own blog and writing that have been about topics that I am interested in even if they don’t really match each other.
So – for God’s sake, isn’t this enough? But I was speaking to someone from my creative writing group last night about how I sometimes reach out of who I really am when I am writing in order not to appear to emotional or sentimental… but a criticism of when I write like that is that I appear too cold and distant. So – in crouching down and trying to appear to be something I am not – I am actually making things worse, not better.
It made me think about people who are not being who they really are because they are stuck in a certain role or feel that they can’t show who they really are. Each person has a beautiful and unique message to send to the world, but I think so many times we just crouch down instead of standing up and shining. If there was more of that, things would sure be much more interesting.
Wow. This is a bit heavy!
When it comes to certain topics – that is how I roll baby!
I agree with your last paragraph, and I couldn’t help but notice that last choice of word- “interesting”. Not good, not bad, just interesting, which I have to admit is probably the truest prediction of what would happen if we all were truly ourselves.
It would be interesting to observe what would happen, what relationships would be created and/or destroyed, by people being themselves. Let’s face it,we all have family and friends who we like, and yet there are aspects that make them uniquely them that we don’t care for. So do we love them despite this friction of our respective individuality, or do we let what we perceive as their flaws dive a wedge into the relationship? Will that then point us towards people who are just like us, and let the rest be damned? Like does attract like, after all. Trying to change them would hardly be a solution, as that would totally defeat the whole idea of someone being themselves, yet surely some would try.
So yes, the world would be an interesting place if we were all our true selves, but would it be better?