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  • Michael Edmondson

Are you who you want to be?


Today is August 17 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you remind yourself that the easiest thing to be in the world is you?”

People who navigate the chaos remind themselves on a daily basis that the easiest thing in the world is for them to be themselves.

Trying to be what others think you should be is often a failed strategy for one’s personal growth and professional development.

American author and motivational speaker, Leo Buscaglia, also known as Dr. Love, noted “The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be.”

Clinical psychologist Barbara Markway, and author of Painfully Shy, suggests three reasons why people struggle with being themselves. First, we think if we punish ourselves, we'll change.

Accepting ourselves unconditionally is difficult because we must give up the fantasy that if we punish ourselves enough with negative thoughts, we'll change.

Second, we don't believe we deserve self-acceptance. The messages we receive from our culture, others, and ourselves become deeply ingrained, in part due to sheer repetition. Hearing the negative phrase “you are too this or that (shy, overweight, loud) repeatedly reinforces the idea that something is wrong with us. We internalize the feeling that we are, indeed, defective.

Finally, we believe we're giving up control. Another barrier to self-acceptance, and perhaps the most difficult to overcome, is the belief that we're exerting some sort of meaningful control when we fight against something. Again, this is a Western way of thinking: we must fight to conquer. In contrast, Eastern philosophy emphasizes "going with the flow," moving with, not against, the resistance.

This shift in thinking can be frightening because it seems we're giving up control, and it can feel like a terrible loss. In reality, however, we're not losing; we're gaining tremendous strength. Instead of giving away our power by letting other people determine our worth, we're saying to ourselves, "I accept myself today, exactly the way I am." By relinquishing control, we gain it.

How often do you remind yourself that the easiest thing to be in the world is you?

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