How do I be myself when I don’t know what I am?

3 comments

1. It’s just one of those bullshit things people say, like saying an ugly person is beautiful. Fact of the matter is, fake it til you make it.

2. Whenever we try to improve ourselves (especially socially) we can get to a point where we are having a great conversation but you wander: Is this conversation “great” because of “me” (my personality, attitude and energy) or because I have a lot of social hacks to make it “great”.

   The line can get blurred but the only why to see it is to examine how you talk to most people and how you talk to your close people. The way you talk to your close friends or relative is an indication of who you “really are” socially. Because you don’t need these social hacks to talk to them, right ? You are close to them because you authentically like their company.

   All the best!

3. To me not being yourself has more to do with not acting in a way that is honest to your needs and your values. Like smiling when you are exhausted because you will rather not have people think there is something wrong, or not sharing your true opinions or feelings because you don’t want to stand out.

   There are situations where we have to hide these things, because it’s expected or necessary. The problem arise when we do it almost all the time. At that point, you can confidently say that you are ignoring a part of you and denying that it exists. Nobody likes being ignored, that applies internally too.
   Once you see it like that, how you fix it is the same way you would do it for someone else. You give that person, you, acknowledgment. You give them the vote of confidence that what they have to say matters. You stop them when they go overboard because being yourself doesn’t mean you have to be stupid about it. Reign yourself in if you feel like you are going overboard, otherwise don’t hold back.
   That way, you’ll build meaningful connections with others and who know, you might found out that you are not weird as you think.

   In the end, to be yourself you have to be self aware, have confidence in you, be willing to take the risk to be disliked anyway while trusting people won’t and if they do, find better.
   So be weird (in moderation), and figure out what part of you can be displayed and what shouldn’t. If you don’t want to be weird, and want to be seen for something else, that’s fine too. Your actions don’t need to be validated by your current perception of yourself to still count as being you.
   Rather than putting on act, thinking of it as having layers to who you are. All the layers of a cake are still cake, and if you wanna add something extra, that’s still a cake.

   Edit : I added some missing words