Sometimes I’m not comfortable being myself. I want to be someone else.

Someone who can enjoy a night out with friends without getting tired (way) before the night ends. Someone who can make friends in a crowd. Someone who understands social cues better. Someone who enjoys small talk without having to go too deep every time.

Someone who doesn’t get intrigued by only the strange, not the ‘commonly’ intriguing. Someone who enjoys watching tv shows instead of reading books. Someone who doesn’t get preoccupied with thinking that I forget about talking to people around me.

Someone who takes more interesting photographs and edit better videos. Someone who writes better, more inspirational posts. Someone who is okay with public speaking. Someone who isn’t as driven to do something meaningful in her life.

I tried many ways to try to fit in better, but in the end I wore myself out. I learned that being someone else is at best tiring, at worst demoralising (you end up feeling like your real self really, really sucks).

We try too hard to be someone else, forgetting that being ourselves are in fact, the best and healthiest option.

Robert Greene said in his book Mastery that each of us can give to this world in ways that nobody else can. You can learn and copy from other people, but in the end, all your experiences must merge into something that is truly your own.

The problem with this is that we often think that we do not have anything special to give. This belief is self-fulfilling; if you believe you have nothing to give, then you build a life around having nothing to give, then you end up having given nothing.

Believe it. Being yourself, your true self (not the self that you think everyone would like) – no matter how painful it feels sometimes – is the best way to go.

You were born an original. Don’t die a copy – John Mason