Since episode 7, you can also listen to me reading the burst by clicking play above or look up my name or the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Stitcher.
Unconsciously, I am continuously looking for myself outside of myself. I am looking at what other people do putting myself into a box that I know because I have seen it outside of me, in the external world, how other people do things.
And that’s my fatal mistake. I am unique, just like everyone else is, and hence I am meant to express myself uniquely. I am not meant to label myself or put myself in a box together with everyone else. That is the idea of society but not of life. None of us is here to be like someone else and none of us is meant to carry a label like “I’m an accountant,” “I’m a banker,” “I’m a retail customer service employee,” whatever…
I am meant to be me. There’s only one version of me which wants to express itself in its very own way. Not because that's cool or en vogue but because I am by definition unique and hence so must be my expression. And it, me, doesn't like boxes or labels.
Deep down we all know that but the compulsively worrying mind of what others think and the conditioning I have been experiencing through school, society, advertising, Hollywood, Netflix, etc. made me not only forget who I am but look for a new me outside of me, one that is like others.
Deep down it’s there and waiting to be fully expressed, not bound by labels, what “one does” nor what is normal. All I have to do is the courage to be me and everything will start falling into place. Can it be so simple? And if it is that simple, why did I make it so complicated?
First, society as a whole does not want me to be happy, it wants me to be a productive, rule-abiding member of society. That’s why in school there is an authority in front of me telling me what is true and false, what I need to know and what I need to memorise. Critical thinking is not that important. I am meant to serve the larger organism without asking too many questions.
That’s the status quo. And so I try to fit into a box that I kind of came across and that looked good and then I strive a life long to find happiness and that ease of being but it never quite arrives. And I wonder what I am doing wrong. I seem to have done everything by the book. And that’s exactly what has gone wrong.
I am not meant to do anything by the book but by my book. I am meant to be me not what someone or something made me be. I have been evolving myself away from who I am, really, I have estranged myself from who I truly am. And that’s why happiness seems ever so far away no matter how successful or how many things I achieve, I never seem to quite arrive.
Luckily, the solution is a lot simpler than I thought: All I want to be is me and once I let myself be me, things start falling into place. Not necessarily immediately, it might take a while, but I will start remembering why I wake up in the morning, I will feel that I am being myself again, that I am not wasting my life doing something that does not light me up.
What does it mean to be myself? First, it means I stop thinking about what is the smartest way to be and I start feeling how I would like to be. What comes naturally to me, what is innate to me, what makes my eyes shine, what gets me excited? And then I just start doing me, taking one step at a time, one baby step.
Maybe I enjoy writing as I do right now, maybe there’s a topic close to my heart like this one. So then I simply start writing and have the courage to share it. Yes, maybe no one will like my new me. But life is about taking risks, that’s how you reap the rewards. That one they actually teach us.
If I stay in my safe comfort zone bubble I deprive myself of that feeling of aliveness that I have been craving for all along, that I am here to experience, to be and feel alive. But more likely, some people will say I love your writing. I can’t wait for your next piece.
And it doesn’t have to be a book. All I do is sit down for 15 mins a day when I feel inspired, usually after meditating, and then I just let it flow out, whatever wants to come out. And here you are reading this short piece of hopefully inspiring content that will somewhere resonate within you and maybe take you one step closer to letting you be yourself with ease and joy.
And you can do the same thing. Write, paint, sing, code, coach, garden, share your knowledge on youtube... People make a living with all these things. And they have fun writing, or whatever they choose to do. You can just do it, then put it out into the world and see what happens.
And if you didn’t find this piece inspiring or thought-provoking, then look out for the one tomorrow, or read the one from yesterday. Or write your own piece. But start doing one thing today, right now: Start being less who you thought you need to be and start being more who you really are. It might seem difficult but it's easy. All it takes is to take one first step. That’s it.
The no. 1 regret of the dying is not having lived a life true to myself but one others expected of me. I don't want to fall into that trap. All it takes is a first step, and then another one, and another one. Don’t worry about where you are going, just take that first step. That’s all there is to being who you really are. It really is that simple.
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