"Be Yourself; Everyone Else is Already Taken"

Oscar Wilde has some pretty awesome quotes attributed to him.  My absolute favorite is the title of this blog.  The quote to the left I think reflects the spirit of being yourself as well.  When we really love someone, we get to know who they really are in a way that no one else will likely ever know.  We see and experience their uniqueness - the fact that they are who they are - unlike any other.  There is no one like you - there never will be again.  That's a pretty cool thing.

It seems to me, however, that a lot of people work really hard to be like someone else.  We try to look like them, act like them, think like them, etc.  Part of that desire certainly comes from the pressures around us - most commercials are well crafted to remind us that we are not good enough but that they can sell us the thing that will get us there.  Yeah right.  Sometimes we hear from family and friends that we need to change.  That sucks too.  Sometimes those we are aspiring to be like are really good people about whom others might even say "Who wouldn't want to be like him/her?"  The problem is that it is not possible.  So we are automatically setting ourselves up to fail.  Not good.  We can certainly aspire to be kind, caring, funny, audacious, irreverent, shocking, whatever - like someone else.  But each of us will have our own unique flavors of those things.  We will do these things like no one has ever done before, or will ever do again.

When you have a moment, if you so choose, contemplate in what ways you are trying to be like someone else and think about whether you're asking something of yourself that is impossible (I was a teenager in the "I wanna be like Mike" era...not gonna happen).  Or when you end up slightly or a lot different than expected perhaps you are just that blade of grass that isn't bending in the same direction as all the others and you are bending exactly as you are supposed to.  You are being exactly who you are supposed to be.

So, sing your song, dance your dance.  Be you!!

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