How To Be Yourself?

We hear about this, and we see it on social media all the time. Have you ever seen those cute little memes that say, “just be yourself!”? And that little “just” they put before it makes it seem like it’s an easy thing to do. First off, it’s hard to be yourself in a society that continually criticizes who you are, but keeps preaching “just be yourself.” It says: be yourself, but not like this, and not like that. Hehe. It gets especially more confusing if you’re just trying to figure out “who am I?” Do you ever wonder who you are and what your purpose on this big spinning blue is? Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s what I believe being yourself means. It starts with these fundamental questions from yourself. Your first task is knowing what your purpose in this world is, and that is not, by any means, an easy question to answer. It’s not like you ask yourself the problem for the first time and instantly know the answer.

No no! It takes asking it multiple times, during different times and ages, and slowly you will come to a solution. It won’t be a fixed answer, either. It’s ever-changing. You have to ask yourself if your life was your message to the world, what would that message be? What difference do you want to see in the world? What trends do you want to set? What attitude and behavior do you want to be known for? When you figure these answers out, you figure out an intention for your lifetime. And don’t worry, you can always add and change things around it. But once you come close to an answer to these questions, you set big and small goals for yourself to go about implementing those bigger goals. Based on that, you figure out a career, the type of partner you see yourself with, the variety of philosophies you want to teach your kids, etc. those will be the bigger goals that will ultimately help you fulfill your purpose.

Most importantly, you will find a frame of mind that you will behave in, that will be your mindset. Your mindset will be like the vehicle carrying you towards your purpose, so you can imagine how important it is to take excellent care of it. So then we come to the phrase “just be yourself.” Being yourself is acting in accordance with who you are and who you want to be. That means feeling your authentic feelings and acting authentically to what YOU think is right. Saying the things you want to say, not because you think it will bring you attention and approval. You will say things and do things only because you like them because you approve of them because they feel authentic to you. When you start doing that more and more each day, it brings you closer to who YOU are. When you act according to your authentic self, you like and respect yourself more; and when you love yourself more, it will not matter if others don’t, and that is just a beautiful feeling to have.