What It Means To Just Be Yourself

There is a lot that is being said, written and done about feminism since a decade now and women have been struggling or should I say fighting to overcome all the stereotypes and social expectations to be able to choose what they really want to do in life. So have men!!! If there are stereotypes for women there are stereotypes for men as well. That they should be the primary breadwinners of the family, that they should be the decision makers of the family, that they should be the ones to take the first initiative at every step in life, that they should be persistent and not be bogged down by multiple failures. Similarly, girls or women are supposed to be the gentle of the two genders. The primary homemaker, the lead in household chores, the executive of the family where she executes whatever the man dictates, the primary caretaker of the family.  It is a constant ongoing struggle for both the men and women to stand up to these expectations specially when it is not in their first nature and they are not good at what is expected of them.  In this struggle, by the time one has lived a quarter of one’s life one has completely forgotten who he/she really is as a person and tends to transform into what is expected of him or her. 

My upbringing has been in a very liberal and forward thinking family. I have been lucky to have a mother who always told us: ‘I have taught you to cook but that does not mean I am going to make you cook everyday. Some day when you start leading your own life you will have to cook for yourself if not for your family. So knowing how to cook is good. But you better focus on your career and be an independent woman first. Cooking will come by default.’ I have been lucky to have a father who always said: ‘There is nothing that you cannot do. Don’t ever let anyone make you think that you cannot do something because you are a girl. You are capable of everything. It is a matter of will power and learning. Play your role in the society no doubt but does that stop you from being yourself? You are over and above the role that society draws for you!’

Yet, I am no exception to the rule. I have gone through the same grooming where I was trained to be gentle, polite, caregiving. I was taught all the household chores and told that I should be mentally prepared to carry out certain duties when I get married. And although in my head I rebelled these thoughts, I did teach myself to be all of that and much more (like my dad said: Play your role and yet be yourself. Over and above the role defined for you). In the effort to do that I lost out on a lot of myself in the early years and only discovered myself again when I grew older and realized that I am just being a puppet. That is when I started making choices for myself and taking a path that I wanted to. Ever since, it has been a real struggle.

The toughest thing in the world is to be yourself. After having spent your early years conforming to expectations, in order to get out of it one begins by being a rebel to everything that is told to you. So everything that is suggested by the stereotypical members of the society starts sounding wrong and like an imposition because you are constantly thinking ‘They only want me to fit to their image of how I should be. But I’m not what they want me to be. So if they are suggesting this, it has to be wrong for me.’ That’s an outright rebel. A foolish one at that. But one begins there.

What follows is a process of self-discovery. One begins to see within. Understand what you are as a person. What do you really want? The insecurity of losing oneself that is causing the rebellion starts to turn into self-confidence. One starts to recognize what one wants to be in life. What kind of life do I want to lead? Our choices begin to change accordingly. Instead of rebelling, one starts to voice one’s opinion forthright. But one still does not want suggestions from others. You don’t trust them yet. The fear of losing oneself again is still there.  

Once your confidence levels have gone up you begin to realize that one can’t go on alone in life and needs help from others from time to time. There is nothing wrong in asking for help and suggestions and although a lot of people may give a lot of suggestions you are now capable enough to pick the right ones from the wrongs and you will not lose yourself to the society again. One also develops a faith in oneself that ultimately the decision will be mine and no one can dictate it to me. When such a situation arises one stops rebelling, stops reacting. That is when one becomes comfortable in one’s skin and becomes a balanced personality.

But attaining this balance is not the end of the journey. In fact this is where the journey begins… one needs to maintain this balance which requires a lot of tenacity and patience with oneself. It’s like success: It is easy to attain but very difficult to sustain. So it’s a simple mantra –

Realize – Discover – Attain – Sustain YOURSELF! Just be YOURSELF!