Be Who You Want To Be

“Be yourself” is outdated. It really is. It’s easy to get caught up in that whole “YOLO I don’t care what other people think cuz I’m MAHSELF homie!!” but at the end of the day, do we really think about what that means?

When you’re going through a tough time especially, like a breakup, it’s easy to make yourself feel better by saying “I’m just not going to care, I’m going to be myself and get over this.” I’ve done it, plenty of times. But “be yourself” is so vague, isn’t it? What does it actually mean? Who is “yourself” and why do you want to be him/her? Or here’s a better question: do you even want to be him/her at all?

Think about it! If you’re perfectly content to spend your life either watching TV, driving down to Pueblo to pick up your niece just ’cause it’s something to do and you’ve got no friends in the Springs, or eating, great. Good for you. The problem arises when you don’t manage to make any new friends, people don’t really want to hang out with you, and then you start blaming everyone else for not accepting you for who you are… which is BORING. That’s right… BORING. Is this really who you want to be? Do you truly not care what others think if you have to preach about it?

We’re human. We like to have other humans to socialize with and to interact with, ’cause let’s face it, as much as we like to hate on other people, people are the only thing in the world that could actually potentially care about what happens to us and that we can relate with. That said, no matter what we might think, we do care about others’ perceptions of us. So I have to ask again, do we really want to be ourselves? Or is what we really want to be the best person we can possibly be? Ah, now that sounds a lot more appealing, doesn’t it? I can guarantee Mr. Couch Potato would be a whole lot happier if he tried out some new things, got over his social anxiety (I have it too, so no excuses), and made an effort to strive for something he wants to do. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best at something. Passion is attractive, be passionate for God’s sake…

My point here is, don’t fall for all that “be yourself” crap. Don’t be yourself. Ever. We should always strive to be nicer, more productive, more caring, happier… better, however we may define that word for ourselves personally.

And if you can be Batman, please, by all means, be Batman.