Just be yourself

Ever have someone tell you to "be yourself"? Ever wondered what that means; "being yourself"? I know I have. I've thought about it, and thought about it some more. And the conclusion I can come up with regarding that phrase is that it's utter bullshit. How do you "be yourself"? Come to think of it; who are you really?

Think really hard about all the relationships you have or had; those with your parents, your buddies in school, your college buddies, your colleagues, your boss, your teachers, kids, strangers in the park, your neighbors. Think about them real hard and then try to differentiate the myriad 'you's you've been in those various relationships. The shit you talk about with your friends rarely, if ever, come up in conversations with your parents. To your grandparents you're sweet little children, but hit the park with your college mates and you turn into sex craved monsters, whistling at anything in a skirt that walks past. 'Fucker' and 'Asshole' are words you might use on your childhood buddy, but nary a curse is to be heard when you're with your girlfriend.

What I'm trying to say is that in all those cases, you are 'you'. And if you suddenly do a 180 and start cursing at your parents, choose to be quiet and reserved where you would usually be raising hell, start being nice to the guy who used to bully you in school; you're still 'you'. Just that you've decided to change the 'you' that you are. Nobody can tell you to 'be yourself', simply because you already are 'yourself'. You just can't be anymore 'yourself' than you already are. I'm not sure I can explain it in a clearer way. Maybe this'll help.

John: Hey Bob, there's that girl I like. What do I say? What do I do?
Bob: Just be yourself, John.
John: What the fuck Bob!? I am 'myself' and 'myself' doesn't know what the fuck to say. Which is why I'm asking you. Dumbass.

I reread this entire post, and now I'm not sure I'm even making sense.
But the point is this:

We should all just stop saying 'be yourself' and let people be whatever the hell they want to be, because they already are 'themselves'.

Dammit, it's back up again.

I was thinking about writing something in this blog today, but just couldn't think of anything to write, so I figured I'd just go to sleep and think about it tomorrow. I click on the sign out link, and this error pops up saying "couldn't connect to blogspot" or whatever. Yeay! A good reason to NOT update my blog, since the site seems to be down. Just to be sure, I instant message my colleague. Sure enough, blogspot seems to be unavailable. I mention to my colleague how unfortunate that was since I was *just* about to update my blog when the connection went down (he'd been asking me when I'd update it, so I guess this time I could say it wasn't my fault, and that I'd do it tomorow).

Then what do you suppose happens? It gets back up. The fucking internet connection, just as I was about to call it a day and go to sleep, is up and running again. So my buddy says "hey, dude, it's back online, now you can update your blog." I find myself telling him that I still can't seem to connect to it and that maybe I'll do it tomorrow. Talk about procrastinating. I've been procrastinating on almost everything for the past month or so. I've got this project I was supposed to have finished up at work sometime last week; I'll do it by the end of this week. Supposed to have registered for my new IC; it's a holiday this weekend, maybe I'll do it the week after. Shit like that. What's going on here? Where's this pattern leading? I'll tell you where it's leading. Down, that's where. If I keep this up, by the middle of next year I'll be so bogged up in backdated shit, that I'll never be able to do anything in time for the rest of my life.

I need to do something about that. And I need start somewhere. Sleep seems to me like a good place to start. It's already 2.40 am now. I can't put it off any longer, lest I spend the rest of the day tomorrow looking like a zombie. Yep, no more procrastinating for me. From now on, I will get off my lazy ass and do stuff when I'm supposed to do it. But first I'm gonna go have a smoke, which I was supposed to have quit doing 3 weeks ago.

This is my first time. Be gentle.

Hello. I'm new at this, so don't burn me just yet. I enjoy reading blogs and I've thought about having my own blog more than a couple of times, but never actually followed through. Recently however, a number of incidents and discussions that went on in the office where I work opened my eyes and let me see things from an angle I've never seen from. Maybe some of you who read this blog may have already realized and learnt from your own experience a lot of the stuff that I want to say. But I suppose someone somewhere might read my blog and think "Wow, I never thought of it that way", which to me would mean that this blog has served the purpose that I intended it for; as a machine for communicating my personal take on stuff that may happen to anyone. Now that I mention it, I'd like to include a disclaimer here, stating that as far as humanly possible, the views and comments that I make in my writings are my own and do not reflect in any way the views or comments of the company that I work for, my friends, or my family.

In any case, I hope this will grow to be an interesting blog. I hope you'll like it. And more importantly, I hope I'll like it.