To be who you are...

‘Be who you are…’ I have come across this as a teaching in many books, numerous articles on the internet about self-improvement, as well as in the movies. I have no doubt on this that it is an instinct which successful ones had in them. Even in the book ‘The Winner Stands Alone’ by Paulo Coelho, the message has been delivered to stick to the original in you and you will stand away from the crowd but on the right track towards success. And this notion somewhere suffice to comply as a trait and add up with many other traits that a winner possess.  

But I seldom confuse myself. This may be because of not having much experience in life, or may be because I am not able to understand the message in the aforesaid line completely. I confuse whether the statement is conditional. Secondly, I don’t doubt on the statement but I perceive that the statement alone is not solely correct. I believe that I need to look into priorities, I need to judge what is right and what is not, and I need to foresee the outcome of my actions before I apply ‘To be who I am.’

Our mind is a factory of thoughts. Many thoughts produced go overlooked while many others make us contemplate. And I contemplate and I find I cannot be entirely who I am at all instances. I need to look if my team-mates are not being offended as a result of my strict nature towards achieving quality performance. I need to get a bit flexible to allow everyone to perform together, happily. I don't like to talk much, but when I am on the job as a salesman I need to be expressive, patient, and talkative. Stupid examples they may sound, but to me they are like few of instances out of many where I cannot be simply who I am. I need to look into other parameters like my priority, foreseen outcome of my actions, or to be say simply in a profitable position. To be who a drug dealer is, or a criminal mastermind to be what he is, that’s completely wrong and that cannot be preached. Wrong doing and right doing, and our ability to judge them, drives what we want to be and what we should be. The statement ‘To be yourself’ is a culmination of attributes that blend our stand in our lives. It stands above all in the hierarchy of self-improvement traits. When all traits below have been considered, then only the top one can be fetched, and that adds a whole lot of meaning to the statement itself. 

Life is not entirely about me and myself. I am just one of the person on this planet, which is just one of the planet of this unfathomable universe. To the life as I see, I don’t find there is anything that lies at the elemental level solely with all the importance. Life is all about totality, various constituents of it combining together to form a meaning. You add two independent things and we get a meaningful thing, you add two meaningful things and that would yield a third meaningful thing. Likewise, to be who I am, that signifies to its truest meaning when all forms of traits combine together. All those traits together would define me what truly I am, or what I choose to be. 

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The Unique in You

Uniqueness, the characteristic that distinguish you from the rest in the crowd. And when each of us owns it, uniqueness works to give identity to individuals in the crowd. Throughout our lives we keep learning. In the process do we keep refining our uniqueness? Or does it stay the same till the end of our lives?

Uniqueness can be observed on macroscopic as well as on a microscopic scale; the uniqueness present in totality, or present with respect to domains. Well not getting too much technical, the essence of this post lies in realizing the uniqueness in us.

I believe 'learning' and 'uniqueness', they go hand in hand. The more we learn, the more we get to experiment with, and more shine to our work adds up. With learning, we get to know more specifically about the areas that inspire us and tend to bring out the best from us. And at the end of the day, from the work we have done, uniqueness is evaluated. I believe to completely build uniqueness, the role of learning we have attained cannot be shadowed. 

While I stressed on the importance of continual learning, I would mention of the grit that the Almighty blesses with. Why I mentioned of the Almighty here? I always mention of the Almighty when I need to mention of some uncontrollable forces; circumstances and hold which are beyond our control. Where a person is born, what sort of family they are born in, and like these there can be various things beyond the individual’s control that somehow would have helped in building the personality. Their persona so crafted in the uncertain world carries the elementary uniqueness. This uniqueness I believe, is beyond one’s control and desire, but I know they can be worked upon later with learning. See, the importance of learning can never be neglected.

The need to change ourselves can be enforced by various reasons, may be to be a better human, may be to hone our personality for our professional lives or may be just to be like our role models. To change for improvement and excellence is great, but never at the cost of 'copying' someone. I have copied a lot, not in exams but in different walks of my life I lived till date. I tried to copy handwritings of my friends because I didn’t like mine, I tried to speak like some of my seniors because I thought my way of conversation with people was not good. And like these, there have been various instances where I copied people. Why did I copy? I copied because I knew I was poor at something. I chose to copy to improve. However, the correct way should be to learn first, and then we will improve ourselves. I kept copying in one way or the other till a week ago. When we copy, we tend to lose our uniqueness. And this uniqueness is the Ace. This is the elite aura that can do wonders. 

Lets try to find out our field of interest first. On the second, we should look if we need any improvement before we start to work in our area of interest. If we need any, then that must be achieved by learning and not by copying. When we improve by learning, uniqueness starts to come to the front with blaze. The third step should be to start working in our area of interest, and consistently looking to improve the work we are doing in it. By the time we would stand on the third step of staircase, we would realize the importance of continual learning.

Uniqueness is a bliss and a catalyst to our success reaction. It must not be killed by stabs of copying. 

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