The Benefits of Being Yourself

I believe our need to be socially accepted is detrimental to our nature and one's true self. One of the ongoing social fallacies is the idea that in order to thrive we must be accepted by others. In fact, this very popular yearn for social acceptance has driven us into becoming a society full of anxiety, people-pleasers and even falsifying our lifestyles to online strangers. And in doing so we lose sight of what is essentially our true nature.

We have two personalities that you may or may not be aware of.

Our inside and outside. Our inside consists of subjective feelings, what we really think and feel, and can be the side of us that we don't really tend to show. On the other hand, our outside consists of somebody molded by our world view (societal norms, peer pressure, self esteem, etc). However, when unbalanced, this outside is merely a facade or a role we play in seeking approval. This longing derives from negative self-esteem and lack of knowing our self-worth and knowing that we are enough just as we are.

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And when we get too caught up in seeking validation and appraisal, we cloud our judgement and learn to behave in a certain way that elicits the response that we want. We see this literally everywhere from our friends and family, our favorite celebrities, and especially ourselves.

For example, your favorite rapper might wear expensive jewelry and clothing and drive the most luxurious car they have for reasons beyond them.

It's no secret that in today's society, people like a certain image. Everybody wants to hear about the next person's black maybach or their bust down Patek but very few artists have managed to rise to fame by expressing their concerns with ongoing worldly dilemmas, social injustice, or just problems in their own community in general. It doesn't even have to be about writing something meaningful yet a lot of these new artists don't dare to venture into their real creative expression and instead let their labels, managers, directors and more do all the work for them. If it wasn't for that lingering concern of what reaction they might conjure from their fans when creating something out of the norm, these artists could come out with a new breakthrough style of music instead of just 15 minutes of fame.

However, there can be a balance in-between these two sides in us. Sure it's reasonable to want to impress others and have a social status, but not to subside in a world of falsifications and lack of self-esteem to the point where we repress our true personality and our true potential. I find it a much more comfortable way to live when you're not worrying about putting up a mask to hide your true identity or trying to impress people with materialism. You might even find the right people that would rather confide in your honest self than the side of you that worries about whether this person liked your speech, thought your idea was stupid, or thinks you don't know what you're doing. There's a reason for the pattern in so many success stories out there, these people knew their self worth and continued attempting after what to us nowadays would be a good reason to quit. The next revolutionary discovery or creation might reside in you but hindering it from yourself due to a lack of sense of self-worth is an injustice to ourselves.

Nobody deserves your true nature if they can't accept it in the first place.