The Difficulty of Being Yourself
Sep 09
About a month ago I decided to finally take charge of my life (for real this time) and decide what my future should be. No longer would I accept that anyone but me would control my actions. It has been a lot tougher than I imagined. Allowing oneself to truly think about what matters, what really matters is difficult. It has been somewhat earth-shattering for me, well okay, not that bad. The thing is that what I previously thought about myself seem to not be true. The things I always believed to be true, might not be.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been studying outside of work to excel at my job. I’ve been using my free time to read books about work-related stuff. I thought, this is what I’m supposed to do. Thing is, work is not me, at least not ALL of me. It’s the easy path, the one on which I know what to do. The road is paved, it’s straight and easy to follow. Sometimes it’s easy to “drive” past all those potential exits because one is so caught up in doing work. Isn’t that sad? I think so.
So about a month ago I decided to actually start reading, and learning about myself (the blog was part of that quest). I’m not devouring everything about personal development, but rather carefully testing the waters to see which people I can relate to and believe in. Personal development certainly is a crowded business with lots of self-professed experts. I’ve discovered a few things that I seem quite passionate about, even though I have little practical experience working with them. Broadly they can be categorized as ‘Innovation’ and ‘Problem solving’.
To me, innovation is simply something that improves upon a certain idea, making it somewhat better in one aspect or more. Revolutionary innovation would be something completely new, never done before. Such as when the MRI-scanner came about. It gave us a completely new perspective on our minds, and we can now tell much, much more about how our brain and mind function.
Problem-solving is not necessarily innovation, but it usually is. You have a problem, and no tools or processes are available to solve it. A solution would, in my book, constitute some sort of innovation. I love problem-solving.
I’m getting carried away here. Let me get back on topic. Thinking, and being yourself. There isn’t much room for that unfortunately. We must comply with certain dress codes, implicit rules of conversation (especially in client facing situations). If someone asks you how you are doing ,they’re generally not interested (most of the time), you’re supposed to give the implicit answer, “Thanks fine, you?”. Boring. When someone asks me how I am doing, I generally tend to spill my life story, to their big detriment, HA!
I had a conversation with a colleague from work about this, he said that: “Well, you’re a consultant, your job is to make-pretend” I thought that was so sad. I don’t want to make pretend, I want to tell the customer the truth, not be forced to tell some lullaby about how great everything is, will be etc. I’m quite saddened that there is so little room for honesty and genuity. In some regards I actually enjoy the work I do, but not all the time. But it pains me that I can never truly be myself, because I’m not supposed to.
Again, you fit the definition of an infovore, someone who not only loves learnign but gets a kick out of it (although I suppose you wouldn’t like being put in a box with a definition). I get that feeling sometimes when reading really good literature or poetry and actually truly understanding what someone is trying to get across. Biochemistry also used to do it for me. I also wish I could be truly myself especially at work, but it is rare. Teaching and lecturing sometimes gave me that, and working with refugees, where nothign worked if I wasn’t myself. In my current job, a policy job at state level, it is almost impossible being myself, there is so much politics going on at all levels. Anyway to change the topic completely, the best thing about a good relationship, be it with friends or a lover, is just that, the ability of being yourself and not having to pretend. Oh and by the way, you and Noah are so much alike. Noah has a knack for always being himself though and so far is resisting most societal influences, not quite sure where it will take him.
I’m not sure how I would feel about being pigeon holed. In some regards it might actually be helpful because maybe there is something to learn from what others have already defined themselves as. Whether or not there is a definition of an Infovore, if it is anything about devouring information I certainly would fit the bill.
Funny, I could actually imagine Noah being a very independent, socially unaware person. I don’t mean socially unaware in a bad sense, just someone that will not care for trends or to follow suite. I have nothing to substantiate that feeling, it’s just that… a feeling.
I’m definitely tired of always feeling I have to put an effort into being someone else. Slowly, slowly I’ve been able to migrate more of my real, true personality into my everyday life… but it’s still, a slow process. Hopefully one day I can feel 100% comfortable acting freely without much thought to my actions (as in liberated actions, obviously not harmful or careless!).
I know totally what you’re saying about state jobs. Through work I’m currently in one of those jobs at a very old, bureaucratic organization that seem to move at snail speed, yet it’s responsible for a very important part of the Sweden.
We must talk more sometime! :-)