#yearonpaper | 06: “just be yourself”

as you might’ve seen, i have a backlog of posts i want to share, including #yearonpaper entries. but i got stuck on where to go next, so i sort of avoided my journal for awhile. in forcing this entry, i landed on this phrase: be yourself. i realized that in very tiny ways, i haven’t been myself in a lot of instances lately. also, that i, in actuality, do in fact want to be myself. woah!

of course even when we’re not ourselves we have glimmers of true authenticity. no one can hide their true being that well. but what made me think of all this is that i’ve sort of fallen into a “fake it till you make it” mindset lately, which i honestly really think is necessary to make it in a creative industry. there isn’t any particular way in which i’ve faked it, and this doesn’t apply to the work i do but the way i go through the motions, really…  just this overall fitting in with “the hustle”, the working solo, the LA thing where everyone clearly cares so much but must—without question—always, always act like they do not care at all. it’s easy to get caught up, especially as a sensitive person, introvert, and a creative soul, and to feel exhausted by it. you think you’re just kind of tired because life is busy and moves very fast, but then it hits you: you’re tired because you’re not being you. you’re being sort of you but also sort of a lot of other people too.

it’s about being in kind of a bubble that you don’t quite fit in, yet at the same time, blend perfectly with. it’s not about “am i good enough?” but more, “am i me enough?” — i didn’t see it before. i’ve always had this thought that maybe life feels (and notice the word feels and not IS there) a bit harder because i don’t do what everyone else is doing. it’s this very conscious “if only i would do x it would be easier” but then i’m like, no… i want to do y! so i go and do y and it’s usually bittersweet, because the only person it makes sense to is me (thankfully elizabeth gilbert has given me permission to create stuff just because i like to, and for no other reason, in her book big magic).

my goal now of course is to do things that are a little bit more me. and have this i’m doing it because it’s me attitude about it, more importantly, not that strange and common thing where we feel we need approval from the outside world. what do you think? what does “being yourself” actually mean? (yeah, those were some prompts before the prompts. here they really are…)

take a few seconds to respond to these questions in your #yearonpaper journal. if you’re up to it, post about it. i’m sure you can find a way to make the headline catchy enough to rise through the ranks of bloglovin’. just remember me when you do! and of course, comment here.

when was the last time you felt really yourself—that if someone asked you to define yourself, you’d point to that instance? and if your experience is opposite the one I shared—when did you last feel not yourself? list the differences between the two, the physical differences like place and time and the mental differences, like your state of mind and mood. do you feel distance from this self? how can you bridge the gap? what things can you eliminate or add to your life or day-to-day to connect you with this whole “being yourself” concept? what kind of difference would that make?