Who are you? Do you know?
If I ask you, “Who are you?” How will you answer?
Will you say, “I am Martha?” As in, you answer with your name. (I had a dog named Martha. Now I have a dog named Annie.)
Or perhaps you will say, “I am an engineer.” You answer with your occupation.
What does it mean to become who you really are?
- “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” — Carl Jung
- “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — E.E. Cummings
- “Be yourself — not the idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” — Henry David Thoreau
What does it mean to live authentically?
When I typed into Google, “Quotes on living authentically.” There were 38,500,000 quotes in 0.31 seconds.
“The path to living authentically begins when you decide to embrace the journey of self-awareness, intention, and being free from the notion that others have to agree or approve of the choices you make,” Zahara Williams, LCSW and co-founder of Ivory Park counseling therapy services in Texas.
Maybe some mornings, you are not your ideal. Maybe you watched four seasons of Ozark consecutively to avoid thinking about your life, and you woke up after the sunset. Or maybe you bought a course on how to do something and never finished the course. Or perhaps you kept your piano in tune but never played.
I watched four seasons of Ozark consequently when I didn’t want to think about my life and I didn’t want to create. I did sign up for a course that I didn’t complete, but I am going through it again. I don’t have a piano, but I kept paying to host my blog even though I wasn’t writing new content.
“I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.” — Vincent Van Gough
Become more yourself
Life is a process. Every morning when we wake up and put our feet on the floor, we have the opportunity to:
1. Be self-aware
2. Be kind to ourselves
3. Create
4. Fight resistance
5. Find out who we really are and become it.
The War of Art, and Do The Work by Steven Pressfield will help you fight resistance and become your true creative self.
Find out who you already are
“Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
― The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Every morning for the past four years, I have read The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. This year, I have added another daily book to read. The Daily Pressfield by Steven Pressfield, published in November 2023. Daily reminders to become our true self, and to fight resistance.
“Of course, the dream of making a living as a writer or an artist or an entrepreneur is a tremendous long shot. The odds are overwhelmingly against success, particularly if we set as our goal the ideal to be true to ourselves and to our unique gifts.” page 15 The Daily Pressfield by Steven Pressfield
The last time I posted on my blog was August 5, 2020, at 7:38 PM,
I am sorry I haven’t written here in three years, five months, and three days. Please forgive me.
How do you become more yourself?
I am trying to become more myself. Today I wrote. And drew a picture.
(And took the dog out, and did two loads of laundry.) Creating daily. Little drawings in a notebook.
What about you? How do you become more yourself? Please let me know in the comments.
I want to know what you think.
I have missed you. Really and truly.
xo Pamela
