Be Who You Are

For a teenager who wrote me a somewhat heartbreaking email that I will not post here as the contents of that email are private and not mine to share: (hopefully this will be useful to more than just this teen friend/fan):    

I firmly believe the greatest miseries arise from trying to stuff yourself into a box to please others.  You can pretend to be something you're not.  You can pretend for years.  You can pretend so wholeheartedly that you may even convince yourself you have become this something that you aren't, but you can't ever BE anything but who you actually are.

You cannot form your personality to suit others.  Your personality is already there.  You form it.  Your life forms it.  Your experiences, your loved ones, your sorrows, your joys form it.  It is already there.  You are who you are.  You can effect positive change in yourself, but you have to do it for yourself.  You can't ever really change for another person.  It doesn't work that way.  You have to be who you are....all the time.

Let me say that again:  you have to be who you are ALL THE TIME.  You don't have much choice.  You have to live in the body you have.  You have to live with the memories you have--both good and bad.  You have to acknowledge your past because it is the one thing you can never, ever run from.  It's always there, just beneath the surface.

You are who you are.  So you may as well embrace it.  You may as well embrace the good, the bad, and the downright ugly parts of yourself because you are who you are all the time.  It doesn't matter if you try to act like someone else to please another person.  You're still going to be who you are, even if you hide who you are from the rest of the world, and hiding yourself will do nothing but cause you misery and deepen your pain.

So be who you are.  Love who you are.  Embrace who you are.  Do it because the right people will love you, flaws and all.  Do it because the wrong people don't matter (even when it feels like they do).  But most of all do it because you deserve to love yourself--just the way you are--right now.  Be who YOU are.