Written & published by: Kevin Beard Jr.
My message to young teenagers, Men & Woman: How to "find" yourself in today's society:
First of all, let me ask each & everyone reading this, a question.
Who are you??
This is one subject you don't study in school, but it is the one subject that is essential to your own happiness & quality of life. That subject is called, "you."
Learning to find yourself is the most exciting adventure you will ever embark on the journey inside yourself. As you begin to discover the amazing person that you are, you will be better able to understand others, make good choices in your careers & lifestyles, find meaning in your life, & earn your own happiness. The most important journey in life is coming to know yourself, & in the growth of that process, developing your true identity & self-respect. Do that well & you will be virtually bulletproof to the criticism of others. You will be confident, secure, at peace with life & attract very high quality friends. Given that, one would wonder why more haven't done it. However, the fact of the matter is, most people do not really know their own identity. They are either mirrors reflecting what people want, or they are composites, meaning they model various characteristics of other people that they think will help. The problem with doing that is that you're a being a copy, & the real you is an original. Even if you fool everyone else, the power & confidence of being the real you is never in your hands. That's a shame, because being that person becomes natural & automatic, while being a copy is always a strain & lacks fulfillment on yourself.
Learning to find yourself is also a question that a lot of people are told to answer, but most people haven't taken the time to figure it out for themselves, so let me explain:
First of all, If you say to yourself "I'm going to find myself," then that must mean you're going to remove yourself from your current situation, head off in a new direction (either physically, socially or emotionally) & see if you can discover who you really are, what you want out of life, who you want to become & etc. This is a good start because you're on the track of making a major change in your life situation.
Now ask yourself some questions. Where would I like to be & what would I like to be doing in 5 years? In 10 years? What do I need to do in order to get to that place in my life? Go to school? Move to a particular place? Am I looking to others to fulfill my needs or am I going after the things I want in my life? Do others tell me what I should do or do I make my own decisions? If it's others, what changes can I make in my life to alter this?
By thinking of these questions in your head, you're already making the effort in finding yourself, because now you're going after your dreams, not the desires that your family or friends have for you. However, if you are doing things or acting, or dressing to please others rather than yourself, you are not finding the real "you." I cannot stress this enough - you have to be the captain of your own ship. If you're reading this, chances are you are no longer a child. You can ask others whom you respect for their opinion, but take what they say as an opinion, not a decision. Knowing who you are is trying to find what makes YOU happy & complete. Knowing who you are gives you a reason to wake up in the morning to go throughout your day.
Now to begin, finding yourself as a person means a few things & can mean different things for some, but in general it means that you try to find out what makes you, "you". For example, do you like to help people? Give to the poor? Do you have compassion for people who are less fortunate than you? Do you like to help children? What things in life do you care about? What's important to you & what's not important to you? All of these questions (& more) that you will ask yourself, will expose who you really are as a person, realizing that you can start figuring out what kind of person you are just by taking the time out to think these questions over to yourself. Other questions you may want to ask yourself include: What do you want to do in life as a career, job & so fourth. Think to yourself: what makes you happy, sad, angry & etc. these are also idea's that you may want to ask yourself. Doing so will tell you more about yourself, as well as start to explain who you truly are as a person. Always remember, you can't find yourself if you don't know, understand, & accept yourself first. It should be your primary goal to write these questions down & to answer them truthfully. If you have too, try to take time to yourself & contemplate your life & choices. Try to think about what kind of things you would or wouldn't like to do. The only way to do this is to believe in who you are, truthfully. If you're always working to be someone you're not, you'll never be a happy person. Be yourself & show the world you're proud of the way you are regardless of how different you may appear to others. Don't worry about anything but being yourself & living life to the fullest.
Take a piece of paper & write on one side all the things that you love to do & things that you care about, or have compassion about, & on the other side of the paper, write things you are grateful for. Taking your time & doing this will help you in finding out who you are as person. Remember, the key to finding yourself is that when you start to know yourself & think about what you have written down on the paper, you start to realize your gifts & talents, as well as use the gifts & the talents that you have. Starting from the list you had made, you're gifts & talents can help you do more for people & even help someone who may need you. Doing these generous things will help you know what you want to do with yourself & what you are good at, then once you do what you either enjoy or are good at, you will start to feel good about what you are doing. You'll then know things about who you are & what you can or are willing to do for others in life. Remember, finding yourself is celebrating you, as an individual - learning to express yourself & be happy with who you are. However, the main thing is this: do not get wrapped up in the idea of finding yourself so to speak, but just do what is going to help, prosper, or bring joy & happiness to peoples lives & then you will be bringing the good out of yourself. As you do all this, you will be finding out a lot about who you are & what you want to leave with everyone when you're gone.
On another note, finding yourself also requires to get away from all the expectations, the conversations, the noise, the media, the drama, & the pressure. Take some time each day to go for a long walk & think to yourself if you have too. Plant yourself on a park bench & look. If you have too, take a long, thoughtful road trip. Whatever you do, move away from anything that distracts you from contemplating your life & where you want it to go. In solitude, you should feel independent & self-sufficient, not lonely, needy or afraid. Doing these activities are not the secret formula, nor is it complicated, but it's also not easy. The difficulty is not brought about so much by the world around you as it is by the world within you. It requires changing the fundamental programming of your subconscious, & most people have a really hard time doing that, which is okay. The truth be told is that the older you get, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more insight you have into just who you want to be & what kind of imprint you want to make on this world of ours.
Furthermore, finding yourself means that you have to find your inner soul that's pure & untouched, & keep it that way. You can't let certain things in life take over your whole being & change who you truly are inside. You have to go your own way, follow your own path, make your own decisions & you have to be independent. You can't do that if your pretending to be what you're not. You would be thinking, "What would this person do?" No no no no no! You can't think about what someone else would do, because that's not finding yourself. You have to follow your heart, & trust yourself to do the right thing. Be careful, though, because your heart can mislead you if you're being badly influenced by someone else. Carefully analyze yourself & see if you're doing the right thing, or if you're following the crowd. Be a leader, not a follower. You have to live your own life, make a name for yourself & achieve your dreams. It's okay if you get a little push from someone else, as long as their intentions are good. Inspiration from someone you admire, for example, someone that has achieved their dreams & has prospered, you can look up to & see what they did in a situation, but still be careful. You could misread what really happened & mess up. Understand that mistakes are okay, but only if you learn from them. If you make a mistake, don't make it over & over again, see what you did wrong & change it. If you're in doubt about finding yourself, just sit down in a quiet spot, close your eyes, & empty your mind of all things impure & destructive to your soul. Leave behind only your true soul, the soul that has been inside you all along, just hidden by all of your insecurities, all the lies you've been told & lies that you have wrongfully believed, & you will finally find it. When you do find it, cherish it, believe in it & always have hope. Without hope, no one would be anywhere they wanted to be today, because we wouldn't have the will to do anything. Just be true to yourself.
Now from experience, the rules that I know will work in finding yourself are quite simple. They are in order of importance. Meaning, you must have number 1 in place before you can make number 2 work, & so fourth. Since there's only 3 rules, they could be hand written for your reference. However, it's easy to learn the words, but much harder to apply the rules.
First rule: one of responsibility.
Every individual is responsible for themselves - everything they say, do, think or feel.
Note that therefore, you are not responsible for what others say, do, think or feel.
This rule puts the power over things you can control in your hands alone. It removes the responsibility for what you cannot control from you & puts it back where it belongs.
Second rule: one of priorities.
Caring for yourself must be your own first priority.
This does not mean "I'm number one!" It means that you are the person put here to provide for your own needs, & that until you are in good condition, you have nothing of value to give away. Think about it this way, If everyone in the world took care of just one person, who would be left uncared for?
Third rule: one of standards.
Your standards must be consistent, respectable & inviolate to you.
This means that whatever standards you set for yourself, you must always be able to respect what you do. The standards can't be arbitrarily change with situations, & you must realize that if you violate any of these standards, they will be diminished by that act, & your self-respect will suffer. You will then start to like yourself less.
The secret to successfully finding yourself is to not compromise these rules, regardless of what others may say or do. These rules that I've made will only help bring you to the point where you are your own best friend. Where you can make very good decisions quickly, without regret, where others will respect you, where others no longer try to manipulate you, where others know who you are & what you stand for.
In conclusion, being who you are is a life long process. There is no time limit on when you should "find yourself." Most of today's society says that by a certain time you should know who you are, but that is by far, false. We all learn & find ourselves at different paces, & also at different ages of our lives. I think what young teenagers, Men & Woman need to ultimately understand is that finding yourself is a journey, not a destination. A lot of what you will go through in your life is trial & error. That's the price you will pay in return for the satisfaction you receive. More often than not, you may hit a bump in the road, & sometimes you fall flat on your face. That is bound to happen, but be prepared to understand & accept that this is just a part of the process, & commit to getting right back up & starting over again to find yourself. It's not going to be easy. Chances are, It never has been for anybody, but if you learn to see that as a chance to prove how much you want to find yourself, then you'll find fulfillment & security in your pursuit of happiness. Ultimately, when you are yourself, everyone will respect you more & treat you kindly. Best of all, you will always feel good about yourself. This is a very good place to be in life, & once you find yourself, you will never want to look back again.
I hope this little bit of information has helped young teenagers, Men & Woman out there who are still discovering themselves in life.
If this information has helped you, I suggest taking a look at my older article, "How to love yourself first before others"
Again, I want to give my appreciations out to those who have been very supportive of my writings along the way - hopefully making a difference in peoples lives for the better.
Questions? Comments? Concerns - I'm available to answer them all.
Much love...
Written & published by: Kevin Beard Jr.
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