BE YOU! 😃

What a powerful message from Bob Marley, who would have celebrated his 80th birthday only a few days ago. In today’s age of being ‘internet famous’, so many people are trying their best to be the next big thing. What you run the risk of is losing yourself. Staying true to ourselves despite the world, and often others, pushing us to be something they think is better is one of the greatest challenges.

When we are not true to ourselves it can cause us all kinds of stress. Maybe you did something that went against one of your values or beliefs in order to look good in someone else’s eyes, even if nobody else were to find out, the guilt that would put on your conscious would be enough to keep you up at night. You might end up experiencing indigestion. Keeping doing that, or feel the guilt long enough, and you will end up with an ulcer and maybe worse.

Plus, keeping up an image of someone you are not takes a lot of work. You can never just relax and be yourself. After a while, you may not even remember who you really are. Talk about stress and confusion. This is not to say that if people do not like a certain aspect of you that you might investigate whether a little self-improvement is needed. Saying, “That is just who I am.” can be a very immature and unenlightened way of making excuses for not putting in the work on ourselves. Just make sure the person hating on you doesn’t have a good point. If they do, maybe even a little show of gratitude while you work on becoming an even more amazing person?

What happens when you are working very hard on being the best version of yourself that you can be and there are still those who do not like you or speak ill of you? Remember the picture above. You can be the best cup of tea, or the best version of yourself, and that person just might be a coffee drinker. Do you know what? That is alright. It is not our mission to be liked by everyone on the planet. There are over 8 billion people. Tell me one thing that every one of them likes. There is nothing. That includes you. As long as we are working on being the best that we can be, others opinions are none of our business.