Page 57 - Pearls of Perception (eBook)

Be Yourself

To be honest, I had a very hard time figuring out the meaning of this
saying. “Be yourself ”, I heard people saying around me as a kid. Yeah
right, like I could actually be someone else instead. It never seemed
as if I had a choice. Like I could get up in the morning and shuffle a
deck of identities. Hmm…who should I be today? Oh, I know, let’s
pick 'Myself' - that sounds like fun!

At first, I thought it was funny as if it was a joke shared by everyone
else. Everytime someone would bring it up, I would say to myself
“haha yes, I know this one, good one huh?”. But as time passed, I
realized, to my utter surprise, that they were talking seriously. Oh,
My God. They really think that it’s an actual thing.

One day, years later, when I was all grown up, ready to face the
world, I finally understood what they meant. Of course something
like 'be yourself' turned into an actual piece of advice, in a world as
messed up as this one. Of course, in a world where deceit, treachery,
falseness and shallowness are kings and queens, something like 'be
yourself' would stand out. In fact, it was considered quite normal. It’s
like a magic formula for bringing someone back from the dead. Yes,
what better word to use than “dead”, when describing something as
gruesome as forgetting to be yourself.

What struck me most, was not the profoundness of this confusion,
which is as profound as it gets, but the fact that only very few people
truly realized what was going on. Not only is the whole world of