This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)
I’m not sure if this question will sound a little crazy to you, but I’m going to ask you to be completely honest when you answer it because you’ll be having an honest talk with yourself. Do you present yourself to the external world exactly as you are? Before you jump in and say, “Of course I do,” take your time to think about it. Let me help you think this through a little by asking you some other questions. Do you keep some of your thoughts secret? Do you keep some of your past situations completely hidden from others? Have you ever lied to some people just to fit within their social environment? Are you exactly the same person at work as you are with your family and friends?
I know for a fact that your stage of life will affect your willingness to answer these questions with total honesty. We tend to be more open to showing our true selves when we get older. In some stages of life, most people are more focused on getting people to like them, even if that means they can’t be or act as they really are. But the older we get (at least for most of us—I have seen weird cases of people acting like teenagers well into their late 40s … and beyond) the better we get at being ourselves no matter what. However, I believe social media and its “likes euphoria” has made a huge impact on how long people care more about the way other people see them than they do about just being themselves.
I too have gone through stages where I’ve pretended to be someone a little different than who I was, and I’m not ashamed to admit it because obviously I was a teenager once, and in my twenties, I vacillated between wanting to truly be who I was and succumbing to the pressure of wanting EVERYONE to like me.
Let me clarify something before we keep going: When I talk about being my true self, I don’t mean my sexual orientation is not the one I show to the world. I’m not sure why people immediately associate the phrase “be yourself” with sexual orientation, but I wanted to clarify that I’m not referring to sexual orientation here. However, if that’s your case, I still say you should be who you are.
When I talk about being yourself, I mean the many ways people pretend to be or to have certain things in order to make other people like them. For instance, I used to hate wide, high ankle jeans when I was a teenager, but I got my mom to buy me some because I wanted to fit in with my friends and with whatever was trending at the moment. See, that was a simple way of me not being my true self, and I bet many of you have done that at some point in life. As another example, I didn’t like a certain type of music my friends loved, but I forced myself to listen to it because I wanted all of my friends to like me (as if they wouldn’t have if I wasn’t exactly like them). I could give millions of instances like this, and I bet we all have very particular examples in our own lives. So, can you now answer the very first question of this post with complete honesty?
I’ve seen so many people who are one person at work and someone completely different with friends. I’ve seen people who act in certain ways (many times not aligned with their values) depending on what they are pursuing at that point in life. Saddest of all, I’ve seen people who lie to themselves because they don’t really like who they are. This last case is kind of tricky because we all have certain personality patterns we may not like, but we can work to get better at them if we’re honest with ourselves. The cases to which I’m referring are those people who pretend to be different within themselves, but they don’t do anything to fix the root of the issue they don’t like.
For instance, I have a friend who hates being an alcoholic because he knows he’s repeating a family pattern he despises, but instead of looking for help in working with his addiction, he keeps repeating to himself that he’s just a heavy social drinker. He says he doesn’t like to drink alcohol to get drunk, and a few hours later he’s a complete mess who can’t even walk by himself because of the amount of alcohol in his body. He lives in this sad circle, but we can’t do anything to help him until he realizes he’s lying to himself. He once told me he hates the drunk version of himself, but he doesn’t know a better way to interact with people.
In my personal experience, I’ve learned to be who I am even if it means I have fewer friends. I don’t follow celebrity gossip, I don’t watch the news, I don’t like talking s… about others, and I don’t like politics. I love talking about personal growth, I get passionate when I talk about books that I like, and I love meditating. So, I have a very small circle of friends who appreciate me the way I am. I don’t have to pretend with anyone. If you like my passion around meditation and you enjoy positive, uplifting personal interactions, you are welcome to hang around me, but it’s also okay if you don’t like me. I won’t pretend to be different to fit in your box because at the end of the day, it’s your box, not mine. 😊
If being yourself leaves you with fewer friends, be grateful for the ones who truly appreciate you, my friends. The other ones won’t help you grow, so if they leave … that’s great. Perhaps most importantly, be yourself with yourself. Respect all aspects of you, work on the ones you know you can improve, and enjoy the freedom of living a life where you don’t have to keep hiding anything.
Love,
Irene
