I remember being a scrawny youth, a mere twelve years old, and having recently returned from living overseas for five years in China. I was enrolled in the nearby high school, and was preparing to enter eighth grade, admittedly, being a bit young for that time. I had managed to skip first grade, and thus, of my earlier, formal education years, had only spent second grade in an American school. Though I could recall a few of my acquaintances from that time, I had no knowledge of of whether or not they would remember me. Thus, it was with great anxiousness and trepidation, that I prepared for my first day of school.
In order to assuage these unpleasant feelings my father, or, to bolster my confidence, or, in an effort to reinforce that he loved me, or, perhaps for all of these reasons at once, I was given some advice.
“Just be yourself J. Everyone will love you!”
And so I donned armor, crafted of his reassuring words, and boldly strode into my new school.
My rat-tail haircut, and completely out of style attire, likely didn’t aid my impressions, nor relationship building, in what is verily a superficial time for teenagers and almost-teens, such as myself. But I brashly met mockery, ridicule, and unfriendliness with ignorant zeal, buffeted by the assurance of the man I trusted most, my father.
In time, further disappointment was to be my reward for reliance on a singularly sourced maxim. I was assaulted in the middle of the hallway, by a class thug and his entourage, and though i stood my ground, I needed to make an embarrassing, very obvious, exit from my home room, to clean up tears and bruising to my face in the bathroom. I had very little luck making friends, and though I did eventually find a group I could lunch with consistently, it was with a table of individuals, distant from the masses, and often recipients of airborne projectiles. I had no luck with women, despite my most earnest and sincere gestures, which were treated with a combination of pity and moderate revulsion.
Having faced these results, as a result of following the advice to just “Be Yourself, and everyone will love you,” I decided that my only solution was to do the complete opposite.
I did what many teenagers do when faced with circumstances that they don’t understand, and in situations where their social impressions are of the utmost importance.
I did the complete opposite of what my father told my to do, and began to make decisions that were not “me” at all.
Ninth grade rolled around, and my “popularity” was increasing. I had begun to dress a little differently, I successfully tried a different haircut, adjusted how I was talking with people, took on a bit more of an aloof attitude with women, and gradually began hanging around different people.
Tenth grade was more of the same, then in the eleventh, I started hanging out with people that expanded my scope of rebellion. Having a sense that my personal, and social, success, had a great deal to do with not following my parents advise, I began to look for new experiences outside of school. Coupled with a newfound, and coming of age afforded ability to drive, I found myself spending less and less time at home.
The schism continued to grow, as I sought new ways to discover “myself.” And, as I began to prepare for college, I realized that the best thing for me to do, was to get as far away from my parents as possible. After all, all of the right things for me, in all the aspects that mattered, happened when I disregarded the advice my father gave me. My logic seemed sound at seventeen years of age, leading me to select a college four hours from home.
When I was dropped off at my university, by my parents, still at seventeen years of age, I realized, abruptly, that I had to start all over.
I knew no one in my new home of scholarly pursuit. And when my parents drove away, I had no home to be a landing strip for my errant flights, nor network of friends to fuel my engines for takeoff.
I continued to allow my broken compass to lead me, finding new acquaintances that filled up my fuselage with all manner of propellant, allowing my guidance-free aeroplane to soar.
When I finally crash landed, and felt the reassuring security of the ground beneath my feet, I had finished college, and was working a job in management, the field in which I had studied.
And thus, my career had begun. I found that when challenges and expectations beset me, I was able to rise to meet, and overcome these difficulties. When I was asked to take on more responsibility, I did so willingly, and successfully. When new opportunities arose, I was able to learn new styles, new methods of managing, and new ways of learning. When I needed to do so, I have be able to grow.
I recently began a new adventure in my career, stepping into a new environment, in a place which is unfamiliar to myself, and surrounded by people that I do not know well. This experience of new discovery caused a reflection upon the advice that my father gave me, many years ago.
“Just be yourself J. Everyone will love you!”
At the time, my father was wrong. Just being myself didn’t make people like me. In fact, according to my perceptions at the time, it had the complete opposite effect. So I set out to prove him wrong, by doing everything that I hadn’t done previously.
What I learned as a result of not following the advice my father gave me, was that, at that time, I had been unwilling to change. When I finally became aware of my own contentment at being, “just as I was,” I found the need to grow. I began to learn differently, I began to behave differently, and in the long run, I became a better person.
Though the initial intention of the message was likely not to be the catalyst for drastic change, the end result was the person whose words you now read.
Would things have been different for me if the phrase had never been uttered?
Could the intent behind the words have been different, instead of the way in which they were interpreted?
Might innumerable choices have been made to change the course that has lead me to this point?
All of these queries are reasonable considerations.
Though, the words that I heard, in the moments I experienced while walking towards a new building, towards unfamiliar people, to embrace a new position, and unfamiliar challenges, with entirely new responsibility were……
“Just be yourself J. Everyone will love you.”
Humbly yours,
J