What does it truly mean to be yourself?
Well, that’s one of the pertinent questions we should constantly be asking ourselves while navigating through different colors, dull or bright that life balls at us.
It’s easier to claim that you’re “Being yourself” than it is to truly KNOW what it means, let alone putting the entire model into practise; when the thinly veiled allure of the external world pushes you do things that don’t quite align with your true being and throws you towards the illusion that you know yourself.
The external world is selling you models on a silver platter, telling you that “this is you”, and quite honestly you aren’t ready to put in hard work either; the hard work that it takes to truly know yourself, so you’re inclined to adopt those models without giving so much of a single thought to what it REALLY means.
To be yourself, you have to know yourself.
Knowing yourself isn’t an overnight activity sweetheart, it requires work, connections, experiences, setbacks, and successes to truly get to that aaron. Nonetheless, you are made to believe that somehow posting pictures and quotes with “Be yourself” as your description will make you look original.
What I’ve come to know from my experience so far is that we have two selves, The ego self and the true self. I won’t delve into the philosophical details of the distinction between the two, but quite succinctly will tell you that your ego self has limitations while your true self knows none.
So, you aren’t the clothes you wear, the size of your parent’s bank account, even yours for that matter, the number of instagram followers you have, the likes you get on your pictures, the title that you hold at your company or anywhere, or the number of estates you hold. These are just external labels that help us get through everyday life, important(that goes without saying), but not what truly defines you and comes with limits. (parts of your ego self)
You are the lives you impact, the people you uplift, the unique problems you solve, the stronger you: who comes out knowing that the world is against what you believe in and what you are, the sacrifices that you make for your loved ones. The you that chooses to speak the truth when odds are against her, the resilient, mettlesome being that picks herself up after being knocked down again and again, and moves on while drawing constant flak over what she does. Again, the list is limitless.(parts of your true self)
I’ll admit it is difficult to truly define yourself, we can never achieve perfection but can’t we aim for an asymptote now,can we?
Yes! we can.
So get off social media, be friends with people who are different than you, better than you, visit places, visit people not as privileged as you, know their stories, read books(all sorts of them), analyse the dichotomies, connect the dots, speak your truth, speak yourself, and amidst that you might create your own story, your own ORIGINAL one.
..and once you do that, you’ll realise that you don’t need to BE yourself, the process will automatically ensue.
Along the highway of finding yourself, you’ll realise that you might have to throw away everything you have come to believe till that point and start from scratch. Most people are afraid to do just that, because human beings have a proclivity to follow what’s safe, tried and tested, but remember your story is different than everyone else’s so don’t blindly follow the “the seven SOs and SOs to So and So”
Go out there, create your own story.
After all, as Umber Ahmed beautifully puts it “we are all the same ingredients just mixed together in different ways”.
Honest feedback will be appreciated.
Thank you!
