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With the exception of a few jocks who now work as daytime managers at convenience stores, nearly all of us were traumatized by the long stints we did at public high school.
We spent so much time worrying about what our classmates thought of us. “Would Mallorie like our new sneakers?” “Would Kyle think our braces look stupid?” And thus we spent years fretting over the opinions of teenagers.
And then, suddenly, high school is over, and you never see most of those people again outside of the local convenience store. It slowly dawns on you that Mallorie’s and Kyle’s opinions were worth precisely jack squat. You may as well have just enjoyed being yourself.
Your own skin is not just the most comfortable to live in. You have what are known as “qualities.” Perhaps you are faultlessly honest. Perhaps your willpower is indefatigable. Or maybe you’re just naturally pleasant to be around. Whichever boons the gods randomly assigned to you at birth, they can only make themselves apparent once you stop pretending to be someone else and simply be you.
You will be tested. Romantic partners may insist that you discard personality traits they find annoying or inconvenient. Employers may ask you to become a bland myrmidon for the sake of their bottom lines. Some people will insist that you shouldn’t wear jeans with a denim jacket, and even go so far as to ridicule you for wearing a “Canadian tuxedo.”
Ignore them all. When you’re tempted to become disingenuous, simply remember any of the following be yourself quotes and stay true to yourself.
Quotes on Staying True to Yourself
John F. Kennedy
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
William Thackeray
“Follow your honest convictions, and stay strong.”
Winston Churchill
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
“For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history of myself.”
“When you’re 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
“In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”
Carl Jung
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
Kurt Cobain
“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are.”
E. E. Cummings
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it…but love it.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, speaking about “amor fati,” a Latin phrase that translates to “love of fate” or “love of one’s fate.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
Shannon L. Alder
“Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit.”
Mark Twain
“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”
Franz Kafka
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”
Unknown
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
– Unknown, often misattributed to Oscar Wilde
Dolly Parton
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
