(Image via jucoolimages.com)
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
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.
Boris Pasternak
When one is pretending the entire body revolts.
Anaïs Nin
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.
Harvey Fierstein
I was thinking about this very thing the other day. How when I was growing up and I’d go out to meet new kids, my mom would say, “Be Yourself.” Trouble was, I didn’t know who I was, so I always tried to just fit in. Often not very successfully.
Now I look back on my life, and I think who I am has changed a number of times…but there are certain qualities that have always been there.
Those are the things I’m holding dear now. The parts that have stayed with me through the thick and thin.
I think I’ve changed a lot over the past 2-3 years, since dealing with these chronic illnesses on such a level as I have, you learn a lot about yourself….some I didn’t like. Some I’m trying to grow.
The main thing now is….I do believe I know myself. And I like her too.
(except on those PMS days…no that woman is not me!! I do believe I am possessed during that time!)
: )
Some days it’s so easy to be me and other days, it’s hard. All part of growing up. And the hard part is that some people think that when they’ve become an adult, they don’t need to grow up that much any more. Because, you know, they’re an “adult” now. Been there, done that.
But learning that you have to keep growing is one of the most wonderful lessons.