You’d be a lot happier if you started being true to yourself.
Honestly, this article is more for myself than anyone else. I’m going to leave it here as a reminder to myself to be true to myself.
I was a strange kid growing up. I had all sorts of weird hobbies and interests; I think this is true for most kids, to be honest.
We were all obsessed with bugs or dinosaurs or space or countless other weird and wonderful things. Chances are, things like these occupied a large amount of your waking hours as a kid. Think back to that time, doing those things. You were probably really, genuinely happy.
I’m also willing to bet you stopped taking interest in those things when you hit middle school or high school, when you felt a strong need to fit in.
I guess that’s the peer pressure they never really warn you about. They warn you about the appeal of things like drugs and alcohol when your friends are doing them. They never warn you about hiding who you truly are to feel like you fit in.
The saddest part about all this is that those things you were so interested in, and so passionate about are the things that made you interesting and fun to talk to. I’d way rather talk to someone for hours about their obscure hobby farming mushrooms in their basement that they are ridiculously passionate about, than their 9–5 corporate job. Pick up your weird hobbies again, you’ll thank yourself for it.
I challenge you to spend some time in the next month doing one thing you enjoyed doing when you were younger that you no longer do.
After high school, I found myself wondering why I had ever stopped doing some of the things I enjoyed doing when I was younger. I resolved to pick some of them up again, and let me tell you I enjoyed every second of it.
I was struggling with stress in university, with no real outlet. Believe me when I say that the stress relief I felt when I had something to do that I genuinely enjoyed was unmatched. I was able to focus more on my work, had more energy to study, and felt way more motivated to get my work done.
You are never going to live a happy life when you are living to fit into a mold cut out for you by society. Being true to yourself means doing the things that you enjoy unashamedly. Get involved in communities that interest you. Stop being embarrassed about being passionate about something.
The chances of you even existing are ridiculously small; we’re all going to die one day and none of this will even matter. That might sound depressing, but I think it’s awesome. It means that in the greater scheme of things, our inhibitions and insecurities are tiny and irrelevant.
Besides, no one is going to remember you as the manager at the super prestigious bank where you work. But they will remember you as the person who loves model trains, or vintage bicycles, or Egyptology. Go for it, dive off the deep end, reclaim your weird hobbies and your happiness along with them. Talk about them, relentlessly and unapologetically. Make friends with other weirdos like you. We’re in the middle of a loneliness epidemic, and maybe being weird is the cure :).
