It’s the sort of thing we say to each other all the time.
Job interview coming up? Just be yourself.
Hot date? Just be yourself
Meeting new people? Your in-laws? The president?
– Just be yourself.
Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Affirming and that. But there’s a couple of problems.
For starters, which self should I be? The needy, demanding child who stomps her feet and yells ‘I WANT’? The nag, cleaning and dreaming of a perfect house and a perfect husband and a perfect life? The Irish joker, quick with banter and a ready grin? The depressive, struggling just to draw a breath? They’re all me at different times. If I’m committing to Being Myself, the question remains – which One?
(Note to inner pedant self: clear off).
Fabulous magazine states clearly that if I want happiness and acceptance I need to be more me. I have been trying. But maybe not enough. Being yourself is a full-time job: especially when others are trying to distract you by doing the same thing.
There may be some casualties. My husband, for example. He thinks I should be praying and going to church. But I’m not sure it’s me. In fact, there’s a lot of stuff I need to change. I’ve always been terrible at maths and PE. But if I really believe in myself, then what’s to stop me being a rocket scientist? Or an astronaut? I don’t have time for training or exams. But I’m ME dammit, and that me was born to walk on the moon. It’s on the NASA website: Astronauts wanted: Just Be Yourself.
Who am I? What is ‘myself’ and how do you define it? Is there a tick box list for what counts as ‘being myself’?
You remind me of one who said to me, using that awful phrase, ‘just go with the flow’. That i take to mean, and i checked on this one: don’t impede your own progress. Keep involved, dont falter whether you make mistakes or not. In other words quit the overworked or overactive need for acute feedback on YOU, ie just get on with it. Yes that is it: just get on with ‘it’. Life is just doing ‘it’ , whether that is brushing your teeth or controlling a space craft. In your case more likely the former applies, rather than the latter! You know you are doing well when you focus. You might even have a peak experience. You become happily engaged and concentrating. you might even have an epiphany or ‘religious experience’. you will not be asking who ‘me’ is. you will be in relationship. The ‘me’ becomes small and the ‘it’ becomes big. You will momentarily be at the top of the world/class and from that place you can then navel gaze as in your piece, then flick the switch back to doing ‘it’ ie life again. Just look outside yourself and if you have too, imagine what it must be like to be a tree or something. In otherwords tell us what you are really interested in, like sunday school or collecting pots or making pots or whatever it is you do and then we find who you are. But dont tackle it head on. That way, as they say, i thought was very unEnglish!
I’m very struck by Hebs 3:1 on this: ‘Dear friends, God has chosen you to be his holy people…so think about JESUS’.