Be yourself; everyone else is already taken!
Attributed to Oscar Wilde
Be yourself! This sounds easy in one sense but can be quite a challenge if you have a poor self-image and don’t especially like the person you think you really are. Many people avoid thinking about who they are because it is not a pleasing image for them. You may get used to playing a part to avoid showing your true self to others. The truth is that, if you will relax and try to get in touch with how magnificent you really are, you can begin to improve your self-image and begin to love who you are. If you need some tweaking and want to change certain things about yourself, get busy and do it. And if you need help in achieving this, many resources exist for you.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.
Do not sublimate or “sell out” your true self to a greater degree than is acceptable to you in the spirit of compromise and love. Each person’s level of acceptance is different, but the body and mind have ways of telling you if you have gone too far – they are called anxiety, depression, panic attacks, nightmares, etc. All of these discomforts are horrible to experience, but, more importantly, they do act as a warning system for your mind and body that you may be sublimating yourself too much, especially if you view yourself as needy. Being yourself involves developing a consistency among the things you say, what you think, and what you do. This may sound rather simple, but only if you have not tried it! And it certainly is not easy at first. Yet it is quite freeing.
Life is short; don’t waste yours by living someone else’s.
Do you ever feel “I don’t think I’m the right person to be leading my life?” If you do not show the real you, you can never be loved for who you are. You are not letting anyone see the real you if you feel you need to hide or lie to be loved. Be honest with others. Your real self will come out at times, one way or another. You cannot stuff away your true feelings without having it affect your actions and statements in some way. This is similar to a jack in the box, a water balloon, or a drop of mercury. When you push in one place, it pokes out in another. Your mind and your real beliefs are very tough to fool, and often the signals of anxiety or fear, for example, are there because your mind senses conflict.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Steve Jobs
It is perfectly okay to be different, yourself. BUT, have some fun, do things other would not, may not do. Fun and liberating to be a little different. At the end of the day, not many things are that important. Ask yourself “How bad is it really? Who really cares?” If you get the right answers back, consider going for it. If you have a bit of an imp or a little devil inside, let him out sometimes. Nothing really bad – immoral, illegal, or fattening; don’t lie and certainly never hurt anyone else. There is a ton of room within which most of us can work and have a lot of flexibility with which to express ourselves. Here are some examples of things I have done that I relish the memories of:
- Being nice to strangers by offering help. For instance, help an elderly person struggling with groceries.
- Take pictures of families instead of one of them being excluded to take the picture.
- Helping friends after an operation, having emotional issues, etc.
- Encouraged our son the walk with his twin sister in her graduation ceremony at a different university a week after he graduated. No one else knew, no one cared and he too his own favorite memories from their graduations.
Try something you are really bad at just because it is fun to do. For me, this includes doing yoga; God never really intended for me to do yoga. Also, I joined a couple of exercise classes with nothing but ladies, 10-20 per session, a few of whom can kick my butt. Most men shy away from these and never continue to attend after tying once or twice. But it has been fun and I’ve added many friends.
Be who God created you to be and you will set the world on fire
St. Catherine of Siena
A few years ago my older brother and I decided to take a trip together and since we are both computer and gadget enthusiasts, we thought it would be cool to go to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. One small problem however, was that it is open only to people in that industry, and TECHNICALLY we did not qualify. Undaunted by that minor little hurdle, we resurrected the H & H Home Fix-It Service which we ran about 60 years earlier when our parents encouraged us to go door to door offering to do such critical jobs around the home as rewiring lamps and adjusting clamps on ladies’ earrings. I think our total summer revenue was around $15 and didn’t cover the cost of the cards our parents had printed for us to leave at people’s homes. He had worked in the computer industry for years and we had both helped others with computer issues. We used this to rename our “company” the H & H Computer Consulting Service with a company motto and official business cards. I was prepared to actually set up a dummy corporation but it turned out that submitting the business cards was all that was required. So for $30, we were good to go and had a terrific time. During the activities in Vegas, I also met Walt Mossberg who was THE prominent Wall Street Journal electronics columnist at the time. I will never forget that as I saw him window shopping and went over to him and introduced myself and had a chance to tell him how very much I enjoyed and relied on his work. This was a stretch for us both, but it is a good example of the “Who cares? Did it hurt anyone; and is it immoral, illegal, or fattening?” I think we both enjoyed the whole experience, partly because it was a little edgy for us both; but I did notice that the world did not stop spinning and the sun did continue to come up.
I have mentioned some specific activities above that I have found helpful, but a slightly different idea is for you to do something, anything YOU find enjoyable. Making room in your schedule for enjoyable activities that you look forward to can also help. This could be anything from a relaxing cup of coffee, to visiting with a friend, or going to see a movie or watching a 30 minute TV show. Just try to take a little time to relax. The following are strategies I use to help me achieve these goals:
For my mind:
- Working to identify demons and all roadblocks that hinder my being the happy and productive, helpful person I want to be.
- Employing strategies to live in a way that nurtures me, helps me be happy and peaceful, and makes me a better person who can help others.
For my body:
- live a healthy live
- no smoking
- no drinking
- eat in a healthy manner
- low fats
- high protein
- juices
- low sugar
- low salt
- no butter
- very little dressings
- virtually no sauces
- working on eating more slowly, putting fork down between bites
- get good, restful, restorative sleep
- get good strength and cardio exercise every week; 3-5 1 hour sessions each week
For my spirit:
- continue my spiritual quest
- church with my family and/or friends
- further investigation, reading, pondering of many different spiritual matters
- stay in touch with a spiritual advisor and discuss, read things that come up
Strategies such as these require commitment and diligence. But the strategy of just being as honest as you possibly can as much of the time as possible is the simplest and best way of achieving the amazing results you will find in being YOU!
Photo by Devon Hawkins on Unsplash
