Before appearing for any interview, game or any important event in life, the most important advice we get is “Be yourself”. This is funny and strange that only humans get this advice to be yourself. You will never hear anyone saying it to an animal that be yourself. This is because of our innate ability to change and perceive through our consciousness.
It is due to our journey from “be” to “become” that the need arises for such an advice. Confused? Let me take it in detail. When we ask someone to “be” something, it means we are asking him/her to deviate from the current/original state. Since childhood we start acquiring beliefs about ourselves from the people around us. Generally, what we try to become is the reflection of our beliefs that we have acquired over the time. We are changing everyday and unlike computers we neither have a reset button nor a restore option to calibrate ourselves to an earlier version of us. This is only possible when we are aware of either our true self (the “be” version) or the version of ourself that we consciously want to hold on. The simple example to understand the difference between our true version (shall be) and the acquired version (have become) is the furniture. When a wood log is shaped and converted into a chair it no more remains a log and is seen as a chair due to its new characteristics. However, it still is a wood. It being a wood is its true nature and being chair is the acquired characteristic. Similarly, we also get transformed by acquiring new beliefs from the way we experience the world. If somebody tells me that I’m friendly in nature it means that I would have made them felt friendly in some way due to which they define me as a friendly person. The same way our definition of ourself is often the reflection of how others perceive us and not how we understand ourselves. Due to this we spend our entire life in living up to the expected image of us. We get aware of our true self when we are connected with our source.
The conflict arises when we strive to be an expected version rather than what we truly are. Living to be the expected version not only generates the depleted version of ourselves but also pushes to live life below our potential. The fact that we are so busy in fulfilling the expectations and change ourselves accordingly make it more difficult to “be ourselves”. Since most of us are not even aware of our true self and our capabilities, create the struggle and anxiety to find a restore point. We are then unconsciously living a symptomatic life with short term achievements and define success as a comparative metric.
To simplify it, all I say is that to “be yourself”, first “know yourself”. Then it will take the mind control and self-talk to align yourself with the true self. The true self often comes out when we live a life with purpose and direction.
Sending love, laughter and joy …….. Parth sharma