Just Be Yourself

So initially this was my post…

“Be yourself, everything else will conform to who you are because if you do it the other way around you might never be able to find yourself again”

I totally believe in that statement but for a moment please do indulge me. We’ve heard it time and again, “JUST BE YOURSELF”, well it sounds simple, right? But what does it really mean to be yourself and what does it consist of? To give definition to self… To be Panashe (you can put your name) is to know who Panashe is...

Parmenides in one of his principles of intelligibility supports the notion that you cannot be what you don’t know because in the faculties of your mind, what you’ve never been exposed to does not exist… Or does it not? Maybe that’s just the world’s way of trying to limit us, of trying to make us believe we can never be more than we’ve seen or heard, touched or felt…But what if there is something in each one of us that is beyond this world, something that great men and women who invented things never seen before had?

I like talking about social constructs a lot so bear with me. My question is, how is it possible to know who you are when all you know about yourself are merely aspirations to be what the world would call an ideal you? To be frank, what you know about yourself is what you’ve been exposed to since the day you were born.

But here's the greater truth, to know who you are you've got to know who's you are, you've got to know your origin. As with paintings, the true meaning of that work of art is found in the artist. This goes to say, the true meaning of the creation is found in it's creator. Going through life trying to find yourself without connecting with your Creator is futile and disappointing because it's not up to an individual to decide what manner of person he/she is nor what her purpose is but that she was created for a reason which will never be know without connecting with God, the Creator of the universe.

Next time you want to find yourself, get a Bible, go on your knees and pray. It will take you a very long way and my initial post will make a lot more sense...

“Be yourself, everything else will conform to who you are because if you do it the other                   way around you might never be able to find yourself again”

STRENGTH... Is it real? Is it natural?

Somewhere between being strong and totally breaking down. But then again, what is strength anyway? Is it not society’s way of saying get over it, it’s okay when it’s not okay and the famous “that’s life”? She’s strong because her child passed away but she’s smiling again, who she thought was the love of her life left but she looks okay, she leads stubborn people but the company is doing well… She’s strong… Do people who don’t face obstacles, people who don’t ever go through things outside of the ordinary hold the title of being strong?

STRENGTH... Is it real? Is it natural?

We live in a society where people are not in tune with themselves. In a place where what is happening on the inside is nowhere close to what is showing on the outside. It’s fake, it’s feeble, it can’t last. How is it possible that we’ve started lying to ourselves in the name of upholding an imagine expected from us by society, an image of strength? How is it possible that we’ve sacrificed ourselves just so we can fit perfectly in a world that is so imperfect? The irony though…

All I’m saying is sometimes it’s okay to breakdown, it’s okay to feel what you really are feeling and not suppress it with “strength”. Give yourself an opportunity to hear what your mind, body, soul and spirit is trying to tell you.  Maybe you’re going too fast, maybe it’s not for you, maybe you just need to switch lanes. And it can’t happen automatically, or maybe it can, point is take your time, it’s a process, a process in which you are allowed to totally breakdown before you can get over it or should I say be “strong” because it was never meant to prove you’re weak anyway.