Did you ever feel that you weren’t able to be yourself? Did you ever find yourself in a situation where you had to pretend to be someone else? Did you ever pretend so much that in the end you forgot who YOU really are? I did…
Why do people end up in situations like this? Why do we feel the need to adjust ourselves for others? To some extent and in many situations it’s necessary. It’s a part of being able to read situations, a part of being socially intelligent and compromise with colleagues, friends, family and people around you. And those situations are normal in everyday life.
But…When the demands from people close to you gets too high, when other people tell you what to do or not to do. When they try to change you in certain ways and to make you adjust to what they think should be you. THAT is when it all becomes dangerous. This is when you need to pay attention to your feelings, when you need to look deep within to not loose track of who you really are, this is the moment you should turn things around…and if you don’t this is the moment when it all can go in the wrong direction.
So what if you kept going, what if you tried to adjust, to change? Over time it doesn’t work, a human being never became happy by doing things he/she didn’t believe in to try to please someone else. A person that has been unhappy over a long period of time can get not only mental illness (depression etc.) – but the body knows when enough is enough, it’s your temple, your protection. It gives you warning signs along the way, and you had better listen. Otherwise those warnings will get stronger, and in the end you might end up in a situation you can’t manage without help.
When you come to the insight that something is wrong (let’s hope you do…) it’s at this moment you have to make important decisions in your life – that may affect your future to a great extent. Take a minute to reflect, am I happy? Is this how I want to feel every morning when I wake up for the rest of my life? If you’re unhappy in the current situation today – why would it be different tomorrow? What can YOU do to change it?
Steve Jobs (RIP) said some wise words during his Stanford speech 2005:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.“
Yes – everything else is secondary! I wish I understood that along the way, but I had to get to this learning point, I had to realize that I love the way I am – and no one can change me to someone I’m not. If you ever feel trapped, if you ever feel you’re doing something you don’t want to do just to try to please others…stop…think and act… The most important person in YOUR life is YOU.
Leave a Comment
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
