How to: 5 Ways to be Yourself

Being yourself is hard, if you truly understand what it means to be yourself. In accepting your flaws, demanding respect, and being okay sometimes with isolation and exclusion, embracing yourself – and loving what is to be embraced – comes with time.

In an environment filled with the constant pressure to conform to a certain emotion or ideal, or belief, it becomes increasingly difficult to refuse society’s offerings of normalcy in preference for your own definition.

In the advent of the social-media revolution, immediate judgement from peers, family members, and, now, people you don’t even know makes it even more difficult to be comfortable with accepting yourself. So, then, what do you do? When you desperately want to express yourself in a way that might be deemed socially awkward, or boring, how do you choose your will over the will of others?

1. Do what you love. If you’re doing what you love, you don’t have time to worry about the approval of others. If you approve of your life – so much to the point of love – you’ll be so enthralled with your life that the concept of acceptance will seem mundane in comparison.

2. Find your passion. How can you do what you love if you have no passion in life? Will is directly correlated with passion – those with passion have greater will to perform in its presence. And when you’ve got passion, it boils in such an immeasurable way that the question of how do I express myself evolves into a constant stream of involuntary declaration. You can’t help but express yourself; passion is an emotion that cannot be contained.

3. Enjoy each day. Who’s got time to worry about the judgement of others when the first sight of the sun is peaking itself over the distant blue of a land unchartered?

(This isn’t just some photo stripped off of Google –

I sat and experienced this, and managed to capture

the brilliance of the moment. The world, man – wow.)

Who’s got time to devote themselves to such social constraints when there’s a whole world out there, beaming with silent curiosity?

4. Explore new things. There’s a whole world out there. Which means there are millions of people to discover, billions of new sensations to experience, and a lifetime of memories to make. It’s easy to be yourself when you put things into perspective. How can you not be yourself when being yourself means understanding the complexities of the world, and your place in it, just a little bit more?

5. Be okay with discomfort. Not every moment is meant for you to have a specific place in it. Sometimes, life is meant to feel awkward. How can you possibly be okay with a rapidly changing, confusing world, if you can’t handle a bit of discomfort every now and then? Sometimes, those awkward moments reveal more about yourself, and the people around you. Sometimes, you meet new people because of the inescapable awkwardness between you. Sometimes, it’s the discomfort that shows you something new.

It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to like different things. Use these differences to educate the people around you. Make new connections with people based off of these differences. You might be surprised to find that your differences are pretty similar to the differences of the people around you. Don’t be afraid to take a leap away from the status quo – chances are you aren’t the only one taking it.