Be yourself.

After a long time of not having written anything, I can't believe I'm going to write about 'being yourself.' Talk about a writer's no-no. When I have tried to think of more ways to be original and clever, I find myself chanting ever proudly the overly used cliche that is often drilled into the malleable minds of elementary students, and forever etched onto your overpriced high school yearbooks.

Be yourself. But not in the "don't ever change" kind of way because I feel like that would be an utter betrayal to being you. We don't live a life of a one-beat song. The paradoxes, the unforeseen events that either shake us, break us, or bend us; by the end of it all, when we choose to live, these moments eventually make us. Not even in the "I don't care about what society has to say about me" kind of way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd just like to think that you and I are both dynamic beings. Most of all, a self true to itself is one who is aware not only of themselves but those around them. 

Just when you think you know, you'll realize how much more life has to offer for you to learn. It never really ends. You get deeper into the richness and beauty that captures our day to day experiences. With the passing of a life, a small hello can all of a sudden mean so much; at the end of it all, all that matters is that something started, something was shared. With the breaking of relationships, the simple uttering of the words 'I'm sorry' can heal so much. With a deepened confusion about how life works, a simple act of faith can bring about so much certainty, hope, and courage. 

Santa Teresa de Avila said, "It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves." And this is why to be yourself is to have the courage to first enter into yourself. It goes beyond finding who you are, knowing the ins and outs of yourself. It goes beyond that. It is in accepting what you find and what you come to learn about yourself and being open to constantly be shaped, renovated, improved, cleaned, and taken care of by the same Maker who has put the universe, the world, and your life in order. Courage doesn't lie in being capable of creating an image, a character for yourself. It lies in being able to step out of who you are and letting people in, letting whatever comes about in life - to shape you, to teach you, and to show you more you. A discovery to the self cannot be made alone. 

Maybe the reason why "be yourself" has become a meaningless chant of loving, living and being is because we have completely lost all sense of what it means to be courageous. Like love, courage has been a word that man has redefined over time. The worse part is that it has been so reduced to a mere facade of 'bravery;' it has been muddied and obscured to simply become a means of avoiding humiliation.

To be yourself by simply appearing to be courageous, and avoiding looking like a fool is just that. You avoid looking like a fool. It doesn't make you any less of it. It doesn't make you less of what you really are. And it's ironic because we always try to seem like a finished product, with so much greatness to offer. When in reality, all we're ever going to be is a constant discovery of more uncharted parts of ourselves. A constant journey of being humbled to the realization that the one thing we try to always have is something we've never had in the first place -- control. If we don't let ourselves discover; If we don't let ourselves be fools for a little bit to ask, to trust, to be hurt, and to learn, we will find ourselves fools for life. The saying, after all, is "be yourself" and not "May your life put on a show for everyone."

By the end of the day, you're left with yourself and not the one you act like to others. By the end of the day, you're going to find yourself wanting to be better than the you yesterday. By the end of the day, to be yourself is really to do something about it.