In one of my classes, we watched a documentary entitled West Coast Crones: A Glimpse At the Lives of Nine Old Lesbians. My professor did not tell us the title of the video or what the video was about before showing it to us. However, I must have top-notch gaydar because the second the group of older woman came onto the screen, I said to the person next to me, “They are all lesbians.” She looked at me like I was crazy, but I was right!
But that is not what this post is about. At the end of the film one of the ladies, when asked if she had any advice that she wished she could have given to herself when she was younger, says, “Be who you are sooner.” These words hit me really hard, and I found them to be really powerful. I also found them to be a sort of personal motto that I live by without even really knowing it.
As I have stated before, I always am and always strive to be unabashedly myself. I am who I am, I love who I am, and I try to be who I am at all times regardless of what other people think about me. I try not to let other people’s beliefs and opinions affect me and what I do. I try to formulate my own thoughts and feelings about things, as opposed to simply accepting what other people preach to me. I try not to let other people’s judgments and opinions about me affect the way I act or the things I say. I don’t let people affect the way I dress, the things I do, or the life I live. I think that it is so, so important to live life this way.
Can you really be happy if you are constantly letting other people affect your life? Can you be happy being what other people expect you to be? Can you be happy simply mirroring what you see around you? I don’t think that you can. I don’t think that you can ever be truly happy until you embrace who you are and become the person that you want to be. Live your life for yourself and not for other people.
Being proud of and embracing yourself, faults and all, is one of the most important things that you can do. I know that this is a lesson that takes people years to learn, and some people are still learning it. I’m fortunate to have come to terms with it at a young age, and I hope that it can help me live a happy and fulfilled life. I would never want to look back and wish I had been able to be true to myself earlier in my life.
Be who you are sooner. Those are most definitely words to live by.
I'm Britni, a snarky bitch and generally awesome person. I write about sex, love, and bullshit. If sex-positivity, discussions about BDSM and kink, queer issues, and topics that are completely inappropriate by society's standards make you uncomfortable, then this blog is not for you.
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3 Comments
You couldn't be more right. I've pretty much always tried to live my life that way but that's mainly because my dad always told me to "be who you are, don't ever change for anyone" and that's what I did.
However, I have learned that it's always good to listen to what other people say and learn from that. None of us are perfect and we can always better ourselves. For example, if you always handle a certain situation a certain way, which may not be the best way to handle it, and someone points it out to you and suggests that you handle it differently, there's nothing wrong with trying to make an effort to change the way you act in that given situation. Does that make sense?
Basically what I'm saying is that sometimes other people may view us differently than we view ourselves, so they might be able to offer an objective opinion which can help us grow as individuals.
I'm sick today and have a cloudy head so if what I said doesn't make any sense, then please just ignore it.
Have a great day!
so true… i'm very unbashed myself, i don't have that sort of filter that makes a lot of peole not say or do whatever comes to mind. sometimes it makes me feel like i should avoid other people in order to not expose my crazy self. (mostly when i have hung over nerves this is), but i totally know that it doesn't really matter what people think. and it CAN'T matter to me as there is just NO WAY i can be something else than i am. i don't have that self discipline. there will always be someone around who appreciates a bit of weirdness though
I am your student.