T.C. California, United States

Where do you find the strength to be yourself? Must we always have to tweak ourselves little by little every moment with someone different? I see many of my loved ones act differently towards others, obscuring who they are openly with me. How do we continue to be ourselves truly without wishing we were someone else?

TD: 

Dear T.C., 

There are people I know who seem to have always been themselves, and I have always admired them for this quality, because I feel I lack it in myself. What I mean to say is that there seems to be no doubt about who they are. It is apparent for everyone to see, unchanging in country ,season, time-zone. How grounding to be yourself, to be known to yourself and to others as this creature—how reassuring. Whereas I am malleable, shifting without being conscious of how I am shifting. I know now that what I imagine as steadfastness does not mean that people do not suffer doubt or fear. That small revolutions and shifts are going on inside them as well, only that there is a quality of spirit that feels more reliable than my own. I think on some level we are all trying to catch up with the self, and the self is trying to constantly figure itself out in relation to everything around it, which feels increasingly fragmented. A beloved poet, Wislawa Szymborska said in her Nobel prize acceptance speechthat she laid great stakes in unknowing. “This is why I value that little phrase ‘I don’t know,’ so highly,’ she said. ‘It’s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended.’” Perhaps tussling with our many selves is the great task of our lives. Perhaps when you see loved ones acting differently towards others, they are in embroiled in this tussle as well. There are moments, perhaps you’ve experienced them too—when you and your self come together so perfectly and seamlessly, and everything feels clear and whole? They are fleeting moments, but the memory of those moments stay in the body as a reminder of what being in the world can feel like. When I’m particularly adrift, I try to stay still, to give my attention to small things, to see if my self can find its way back to me. It’s one way to continue…