Just Be Yourself
A simple concept sometimes misunderstood. The difficulty of acting within yourself caused by multiple causes. You’re best when you’re just yourself.
‘If you only get one chance to make an impression on someone, why wouldn’t you be yourself?’
My transformation from an insecure, passionate and suppressed voice to someone with confidence, passion and a sustained voice has been no mean feat.
It may have taken hitting the bottom, realising that cheating the system only helps the short term and destroys the long game and deciding that I had to write my own rules.
It took understanding that my character was personable enough to engage and relate to a crowd.
It took recognising the faults in myself and translating them to the similar faults in others.
It took a lot of work, observation — trying and failing.
More failing than succeeding.
But I finally took centre stage and spoke to school students.
I think I found this morally very difficult to do justice by what I would’ve liked to hear back then.
All those years of working hard for the goal to leave school and live my life away from those who intended to make fun out of my misery.
But no direction after that.
This presentation dedicated to the struggle of my past self and to congratulate the perseverance of my current state of mind.
I laughed at myself and took a long pause while looking at the students in front of me — I had actually managed to divert my life in a direction that makes sense to me and would satisfy my passions of past years.
That’s something quite special when you feel it, completely unexpected.
Let me set the scene.
I decide to walk the two miles from my aunt’s home in Lewisham to the school near New Cross Gate Overground station.
The route is scenic with interesting housing developments and long-stretching boulevards.
I approach the school, a quarter of an hour early and decide to go and make myself known to reception.
As I walk through the front door, I’m swarmed by Year 10 — Year 13 students.
I sit in reception waiting for my contact teacher to find me and take me away from the madness of this confined reception area.
As I sat down, I started to feel my hands become clammy. I felt some nerves. I didn’t know if my presentation would stick nor resonate with the crowd.
Even if there was only one student in there. This was a big deal.
It was an opening up and a vulnerable portrayal of my life and how I used QMUL as a vehicle and transport mechanism away from self-deprecating and moving towards a more positive future.
I spoke about my study abroad, dissertation, career opportunities, life and modules at QMUL.
This was all framed and underpinned under this idea about ‘my transformation’, from an introverted school kid to a confident and affirmative member of the community.
As I started my presentation, I had a time crunch.
The allotted thirty minutes cut to merely seventeen.
I didn’t want to rush what I was saying but neither did I want to skip anything.
I was prepared for delivering the presentation and making as interactive as possible.
I asked questions to the audience and I made sure I asked questions beforehand to gauge appeal to what I was talking about.
I’ll never be sure if I made the impact that I was invited to give.
I can only know that I performed the character that I know best to play — myself.
I tried my best to make it funny and informative while still sharing the truth and realities of life and that it has been a difficult and painstaking road.
You can never know the impact you have on others.
You can only try to do the best job and hope your ability satisfied their need.
I’ve learnt you can’t force it with people, they have a brain and are able to make their own informed decisions.
Away from the talk today, I returned to university to do some transcribing and general university work.
I met up with two friends, Adil and Olivia on the off chance.
Adil just graduated with a BA in Geography from QMUL and has deferred a MSc in Global Health Development (I believe) at UCL. He’s working at MenCap for the SE London region this year and I can see him light up when he talks about his journey.
It’s often unexpected the path we take and completely unprecedented at times.
Busy friends always drift together and apart but you can see and sense a notion of pride when they accomplish or are in the midst of accomplishing something incredible.
It was amazing to catch up with him and so unexpected which made it even better.
The other was Olivia. She had been studying abroad for the whole year before in Auckland, New Zealand.
She had a meeting with her advisor and I saw her before she went into that meeting. We met up afterwards and had a long chat. It was a good catch up and it was like she never left.
This is two examples of not knowing how your impact affects others.
I was nothing but myself with both and with everyone.
I don’t often like conforming to these standardised practices of another identity. I just don’t see the point.
This notion of being yourself and comfortable in your own skin takes time. A lot of time.
It takes a lot of rejection but you soon see the value in other things.
Your work.
Your small moments to relax.
Your chance meetings.
Your nuggets of genius.
People will always let you down, but you can never let yourself down.
You can always try your best and that best will be defined by the limits of success you set.
Only within those bounds can you assess your performance.
It’s a skill I’ve learnt to acquire out of necessity from failing too many times.
If I’ve learnt anything from my journey so far, it’s that looking down at the mud only gets you to realise that the only other way is up.
But to do anything about it, you have to be pushed into the mud and smother your face in the earthiness.
Only then, only when you’ve suffered do you succeed.
This life is not one to waste.
Especially not trying to be someone else.
Just be yourself