Being Ourselves

Posted by: L.E.S. on: September 4, 2014

• In: Everyday Life | Faith | Family | Friends | Parenting
• 2 Comments

I like the message on this GRÜV cell phone case (seen at Amazon.ca)…

To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

~ e.e. cummings, quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations, 2^nd Edition

While reading Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection early this morning, I came across a variation on the quote above. I thought to myself, “It’s hard enough to be myself as an adult; it’s got to be even harder for the kids starting school this week.”

The little boy or girl starting kindergarten, the child who’s new from another school in town or another city or another country, the teen starting high school or university: they all feel the pressure to fit in.

But they have to choose: do they pretend to be something they’re not just to belong, or do they share their true selves—the ones God designed?

They might prefer skirts over yoga pants or khakis over jeans, classical music over hip hop, reading over video games. They might enjoy being involved with their youth group and spending time with family rather than hanging at the mall. Their ideas of what’s fun and cool might be different from the mainstream.

And they should celebrate that, instead of trying to conform to the way their peers—or the media—tell them they should look, sound, behave or think.

I  believe in marching to your own drummer. When I was in high school, I followed some of the trends, but I also wore dresses and high heels when the mood struck. I ran track one year but I was also on the academic quiz team, wrote poetry and cross-stitched. At university, I was more interested in having access to a great library and learning about everything from sociology to psychology than I was in partying.

And I was blessed to have some good friends who had their own quirks—including one who laughed till she cried and another who made funky clothes out of any material she had—as well as teachers who encouraged me and parents who supported me.

As the children and youth in our lives finish their first week of classes, I pray that we would encourage them to be themselves—to pursue their God-given interests and goals and to be the people he created them to be.

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Tags: belonging, Catholic, Christian, faith, fitting in, God, religion, students