Just Be Yourself

Growing up we are told constantly to be ourselves.  That is a point that is constantly reinforced in our minds.  For many of us it goes so deep that we feel that we are unable to change.  We feel that we are unable to be anything different then the person that we have already established as "ourself".  Sometimes I like to have these random thoughts and question the validity of things that sometimes seem so obvious we never bother to give them a second thought.  When I bring up the thought of being yourself, you probably don't really have any huge epiphany, it is a thought that you simply brush over.  It is an expression that you have heard frequently enough that when its familiar sound escapes someone's lips you are almost exasperated by the use of cliche.

The more I begin to pause and think, I am becoming convinced that perhaps it is not a positive thought.  The beginning of "be yourself" is quite obvious and came with good intentions - it is to avoid the fake, plastic person that many become in order to gain popularity.  It is in order to avoid the affects of peer pressure - to encourage people to think their own thoughts and be an individual.  I am not sure that this was the best tactic we could have taken.  While perhaps in a sense it worked for some...the same notion has also allowed those without positive moral attributes to find refuge in the terminology of just being oneself.  While we are making attempts to avoid having others follow in their footsteps, the expression of be yourself simply cements those that are already there and as I said before can slowly become a trap.  We begin to think that we cannot move beyond what we have become.

The notion of be yourself comes with a preconception that yourself is the best and most enjoyable person you can be.  That is surely not the case, for as pleasant as I have convinced a few of my readers that I am by "being myself"  there is actually a fair deal of sarcasm, cynicism, pride, and other unpleasant attributes that come with the deal.  By claiming I am just "being myself" does that excuse the hurt of remarks and the unpleasant ripple effect that it produces by evoking your own less-than-positive reaction?  Of course not.  We are holding people to a standard higher then their own standard.  We want people to not be their selves...and we surely do not want them to be ourselves - for if you have ever met someone much like you, you have probably noticed that you often clash and end up not liking them much at all. 

So if we do not want to be ourselves - and we don't want to be our neighbor's self because both often leave us feeling worse then before...what would be a self that we can chase after with positive effects?  We often point to great minds and heroes of our ages.  This can be effective in many ways because we often see only the good attributes of these heroes.  Being influenced by these good attributes helps us to realize that we can reach higher and do more then we thought before.  The problem is that we don't see the hard part of these people's lives.  We don't see how they deal with frustrations and we are not given a realistic picture of what their life is really like.  And as hard as we try to be like them, we simply cannot do it on our own.  We would need them to come alongside us and train us.  We would need to be influenced by them.  And once we see them in action, we might find that our notion of them being so great, was in actuality, a fraud.  They surely were great in certain situations, but it seems that they share many of our flaws and often make us feel as bad as the "average" people in our lives.

So it seems that the fatal flaw is that all people are messed up in some way.  There is no perfect person that we can be "trained" by to somehow become better.  Should we then give up and simply accept the fact that we are doomed to hurt the people we encounter?  Should we simply continue to make bad decisions and make the excuse that we were just doing what we know and being ourself?  Or should we begin to think that perhaps there is something else?  If there is this notion that something greater exists...that there is an ideal self that one could be; that there is a way to live in harmony, building people up instead of tearing them down...then perhaps there is a way to achieve it.  There must be a source.  

And we find in scripture that there is.  God is the source.  Christ is the object.  When we begin to seek him and ask him to change us - he actually has the power to do it.  He truly can come beside us and begin to change us.  And his example is constant.  He does not fluctuate.  In the good and the bad he remains constant, always revealing the perfect answer to the situation.  It is important that he is the only one that can truly create this change.  If a person could do it then there would not be equality - some people would be better then others.  But in light of Christ we are all equal.  We are all flawed...and this is a crucial part to the solution.  Once we accept the fact that we should not be ourselves because we are flawed - and that everyone else has the same problem we immediately begin to have compassion and grace that is stemmed from humility.  And that is one of the most crucial elements for chasing Christ.  His humility was so great, that even knowing that he was perfect and we were sinful, he died the cursed death of crucifixion after suffering the humiliation of public torture.  We must pick up our own crosses, die to ourselves daily, following Christ instead.

So don't be yourself.  Be Christ.