My current thoughts about "being yourself"

A mentor of mine once said to me that, “The easiest thing in the world to be is yourself.” This statement is reasonable enough for me from a practical sense. Being yourself should require no extra energy. Trying to be someone else or trying to be what you think others want you to be takes extra energy. In this logic, if you are exhausted, you may be trying to be someone else.  However, in my personal experience, it seems easy to be exhausted.

Maybe it would be easiest to be yourself in a vacuum. If there were no external forces at work you would probably just be yourself, but that doesn’t seem to be the world we were born into. There seems to be a gravity pulling us to the middle. Tempting us to conform. Tempting us to meet the expectations of our parents, teachers, coaches, friends, coworkers and spouses. 

I fell in love with a girl during my undergrad. I really wanted to marry her, but her parents wanted her to “go find herself” before she got married. That statement frustrated me to no end. “Why would you need to go somewhere to find yourself?” I used to think. You already are you! You can’t be anyone else! Well, I was naive and idealistic at the time and as it turns out, had a lot of finding myself to do still. 

I think my problem with her parents’ logic is that you need to go out and find yourself. “You” isn’t lost somewhere in the world, needing to be recovered. Your true self is somewhere within needing to emerge. Your experiences, your stories and your challenges play a big part in this. Suffering can invite you to go deeper and to seek comfort in Truth. But suffering can also tempt you to go external, looking for comfort in distraction and ultimately making you more lost. 

It may be incredibly difficult to be yourself due to the conditions we live in. The loudest voices in our society can pull you away while the most profound truths come in whispers. The gravitational pull towards your ego (false self) is strong. Seeking your true self comes with a price. It involves taking responsibility, letting go of attachments and a whole lot of forgiveness. 

Maybe the easiest thing to be is exactly what you’ve practiced being your whole life, even if it is exhausting. And that’s okay if that’s you reading this right now. You became this version of yourself because you needed to survive and cope with what happened to you in your life. However, when you’re ready to “find yourself,” don’t just go searching out in the world. Go inward. Take responsibility, let go and forgive. Also...go travel a little. It’s fun and you can learn a lot from other cultures :)