If you want to make the world a better place in any way, you have to start by becoming whole yourself.
During the 1999 Mount Holyoke Commence Speech, author and journalist Anna Quindlen said:
“…nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great ever came out of imitations. The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect [in any way that seems to be what anyone expects, including yourself] and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
“This is more difficult, because there is no zeitgeist to read, no template to follow, no mask to wear. Set aside what your friends expect, what your parents demand, what your acquaintances require. Set aside the messages this culture sends, through its advertising, its entertainment, its disdain and its disapproval, about how you should behave.
“Set aside the old traditional notion of female as nurturer and male as leader; set aside, too, the new traditional notions of female as superwoman and male as oppressor. Begin with that most terrifying of all things, a clean slate. Then look, every day, at the choices you are making, and when you ask yourself why you are making them, find this answer: for me, for me. Because they are who and what I am, and mean to be.
This is the hard work of your life in the world, to make it all up as you go along, to acknowledge the introvert, the clown, the artist, the reserved, the distraught, the goofball, the thinker. You will have to bend all your will not to march to the music that all of those great “theys” out there pipe on their flutes. They want you to go to professional school, to wear khakis, to pierce your navel, to bare your soul. These are the fashionable ways. The music is tinny, if you listen close enough. Look inside. That way lies dancing to the melodies spun out by your own heart. This is a symphony. All the rest are jingles.
“This will always be your struggle whether you are twenty-one or fifty-one [or any age young or experienced]. I know this from experience. When I quit the New York Times to be a full-time mother, the voices of the world said that I was nuts. When I quit it again to be a full-time novelist, they said I was nuts again. But I am not nuts. I am happy. I am successful on my own terms. Because if your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”
Source: 1999 Mount Holyoke Commencement Speech
This is about being you.
If you think you are already you, fully you, you would be brave and courageous and deeply content with yourself and your life. The good news is that there are others who live their lives like you, bravely and courageously, and contentedly. And I’d love to meet you.
If you’re one of the rest of us, this is about getting to know you, accepting you, being brave and courageous and showing the rest of us all of you, and getting closer and closer to being content with yourself and your life.
There is constant pressure to be less of you.. to conform. It started when you were a little kid. Parents pressing you to be quiet, use your inside voice, play nice, don’t do what mommy and daddy tell you not to do. We suffer greatly as a small child when we do what comes naturally to us. Yes it’s true, some of that conformity is absolutely necessary for our safety and survival. Most of us were shown that love and acceptance will be taken away unless you conform. Parents don’t intend to make us small but that’s what happens.
In school, the pressures were to color inside the lines, stay in your seat, listen to the teacher, no note passing, stay out of trouble, study and get good marks, keep up because your life depends upon how well you do at school. Be small.
Soon it becomes dress this way and that way, listen to this music and that music, and at all costs avoid social exclusion. Your social and dating life is at risk of being shit unless you conform. Be small.
At work it’s things like fit in, get ahead, don’t be a quitter, there’s no “I” in team, dress like us, act like us, talk like us. Failing to conform could cost you your job, and can severely limit what you get paid or get to do. Be small.
In socializing it’s things like dress attractively, wear the “right” clothes, attract that hot person, sex only on or after the 3rd date, don’t call him he’ll call you, follow this diet plan, don’t be a slut, be nice to woman, take it and take it and take it and never show weakness, don’t give up or give in, don’t be a pussy, dudes don’t cry, never cry at work, men are pigs, nice girls don’t do that, and a million trillion other limiting things. It makes us think that to belong we have to be as melba toast as possible. The real you is either not enough, or is too much. The real you isn’t welcome. The real you isn’t loveable. The real you can destroy your life or crash any future you thought you had. Be small.
It’s like you were born a beautiful, complex jigsaw puzzle, each piece waiting to play its part. From your first breath, naked wet cold and screaming, you put the puzzle of your life together one piece at a time. And along the way, the people in our lives reshape the pieces they don’t like, leaving you with a piece that doesn’t fit “you” anymore. This happens especially when we’re young, leaving us with self doubt, insecurities, dependencies, conflicting rules about how life operates, and many other difficult things.
Is it any wonder that we feel a little lost, like there’s something missing but we’re not quite sure what it might be, or knowing that a certain part of your puzzle is missing and you’re not giving it the light of day for fear of what might happen to you or someone else if you do.
Why does all that pressure happen and why do we let it go unchallenged?
Unchallenged? Ha! Do you now anyone under 6 or 7 years old? They might not know who they are yet, but they sure do know what they want and don’t want, and they let their displeasure be known at any attempt to contain them. Soon enough, or not soon enough if you ask some people in their lives, they begin to hide their true selves, and give up on their “childish ways”, and try to be “good”(ish). That’s when we begin to be small.
I think the truth is that we never really give up on our true selves. We have an innate tendency to look for ways to be, have, do, see, hear, say, taste, touch, feel, go, stay, play whatever we want. But after so many years of pressure to conform, we very often don’t know how to be authentic, don’t know if we can, or don’t know what the “consequences” will be if we aren’t being small… So we succumb and let ourselves be contained, and almost (but not quite fully) give up on our true selves.
That sense most of us have is that there’s something missing, a sense that we’re meant to be… more. That’s the you that hasn’t seen the light of day for a long time because of the pressure to conform.
So why then, if we can still feel our true selves somewhere in there, do we continue to be less than that?
I have a suspicion that if we are all the same, when we conform to the rules then we are easier to sell to. Also, in conforming we unknowingly turn each other into the messenger of what’s “acceptable”, we reinforce the message that conforming is the right way for the rest of us, we make each other afraid of being different, and at the same time, we confuse each other by repeating the narrative that we are all unique.
Conforming is fitting into the skin suit made in someone else’s mind that has little or nothing to do with the authentic you.
But life never stops inviting you to come home to your true self. And the pressure to conform never stops.
The trick to turning the lights on is to build more and more tolerance for the anxiety that being the authentic you produces despite the pressure to conform. Tolerance of anxiety is the way home. Anxiety never goes away. But it’s ability to keep you small looses it’s grip on you, and the authentic you shows up more and more and more and more….
Being small does not serve you, or the rest of us.
Being small robs us both of the gifts that only the authentic you brings by being you… all of you.
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