Whether your character is yours?
Weird question, right?. It’ll sound even more weirder when you read like this. “Whether my character is mine?”. This question haunted me like anything.
For the past few days, I felt like hating myself for no reason. We all would have faced this. It’ll be easy to find why we hate others but when it comes to us, no matter how much we bang our heads, the answer will not pop up.
I personally believe that if you have a question then answer will appear. More or less like if the student is ready, the teacher will appear. All we need to do is to observe everything.
So I started to write. Instead of writing “Why, I hate myself?”. I wrote, “What do I need to change to love myself?”. Many things popped up. I wrote everything one after the other.
What do I need to change to love myself?
• Lack of self-confidence
• self-comparison and self-doubt
• seeking approval from others
• Thought of thinking what others will think
In meantime, my 5 yr old cousin rushed to my room, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me along to her play area. It was filled with toys of various kinds. Everything was placed in a neat and tidy way. She made me sit on a stool and asked “What do you like to eat, Akka( sister in Tamil)”. I don’t know what to expect. So I just blinked looking at all the things around. She read my mind it seems. She asked, “What about coffee?. It’s hot”. I can’t agree more.
Then she brought a cup which is smaller than my thumb with a small plate underneath it. She brought it in such a way as not to spill anything down even though it has nothing inside. She handed it gently with a cute instruction “Be careful. It’s hot”. I sipped. Correction. I acted as I sipped. I expected “Is it good?”. But before I utter a word, she asked “It’s good, right?”. Then I was like “It is great. Where did you learn this?”. “ From my mom,” she said with pride. Something inside me wants that attitude. That confidence for being completely her without thinking what others will think. It looked as if seeing me after changing all the things I wanted to. I wished to be like her.
Then she went to the kitchen, brought my mom, and made her sit in the chair next to me. The serving process continues. My mother was very happy to be a part of the table. After sipping the coffee she turned to me and whispered “When you were five, you were exactly like this”. That strikes me hard. This time, the teacher appeared in the form of a kid.
So I rushed to my room and started to write before the idea fades away:
“If the character which I am trying to change is already a part of me,
Then who is responsible for the character which I don’t like about myself?”
I dived deeper. I traveled back to my childhood. When I was ten years old, I remember someone saying “You are not the kid anymore. You need to be like a grown-up”. What it means is, change your attitude. But what we do is, we change our character. Ok fine. The change starts from there.
And once we reach our adult age, that someone will be like “You need to be like an adult now”. After some point of being an adult, that someone who asked us to change will be nowhere and we’ll feel like we are alone. We’ll feel like we are lost. And that point, THAT IS THE POINT we’ll think on our own. We’ll again try to change us. This time not for others but for us. When we change, we’ll feel as if we achieved something big. But what we did is “We changed ourselves to a person who we actually are”. That is to the character of a kid who is a part of us from the beginning till now.
So it means, our original character has changed to some character unconsciously. To a character that is not ours. And we feel complete only when we change ourselves to our original one. If we are not taking care of it then it would probably happen at our old age. That’s why we call them experienced.
In short,
“We keep on try to change ourselves from our childhood till the adult for others. At some point we’ll start to hate us, we’ll question us, then we’ll start to listen to our inner voice and the inner voice will change us to a person who we already are”
This is happening often because we are ready to lose our identity in order to fit into society.
Now let us go back to our question. “Whether your character is yours?”. The answer is, most of our character is not ours. We either acquired it from others or we would have changed it for others. Your true character will never let you hate yourself. So next time before changing yourself for others or when you hate yourself, don’t try to change you. Instead double-check whether it’s really you.
