Let me share my personal frustration. Almost every
book, every movie, every website about personal development and search for
happiness (which already make me throw up) says Step one: be yourself. Apparently, that’s the quickest way of
finding the desired harmony in life, and blah-blah-blah. There is one small problem,
though. Nobody says what is Yourself.
The truth is, there is no such thing as Being yourself. This yourself-puzzle is made of your parents’
bringing up system; your nationality background; of the way people behaved
around you when you were a teen and the way they behave around you now; of
these TV show actors that you secretly worshiped; of these book characters that
you were reading at night hiding from your parents under the blanket; of these
family friends that you fell in love with; of your basketball couch who was
extremely successful in your eyes; of this stranger in the subway who looked so
decent and elegant that you thought “I
should cross legs the same way when I sit, it looks very refined”.
Every single gesture of yours, not talking about the
decisions you make every day, is
somebody else’s gesture that once matched with your preferences and
principles (that actually were also grown up in you by your family and your
community) so that you decided to borrow it. Every one of us is an amazing
actor, playing his role spontaneously, thinking that it is himself, that it is what he actually is. But in fact, it’s what he
wants to be because he finds it attractive in other people. She is extremely
nice and cheerful person because she thinks that is what a woman should be,
because that is what her beloved mother was or that is how Kate Middleton looks
like. He is a charming asshole because that is what his uncle was (and all the
women were crazy about him) or that is how Doctor House behaves and nobody
fires him.
Our I was myself
/ I wasn’t myself, I had to pretend to be someone I wasn’t are based on
what we find the most attractive in other people. We borrow features from each
other adapting them till they become unconscious and call them myself. Meanwhile, the category Pretending includes features that we
don’t like in others or we liked for a while but they are not fun anymore.
However, this awesome mechanism helps us to avoid thinking too much of what is myself and what is that’s not me! and exploding our minds every time we need to make a
step.
In short words enjoy your life and stop feeling
obliged to be yourself! It’s a made
up creature :)
