It Is Impossible Not To Be Yourself

Casually being myself.

Hey, my name is Marta — and I am always being myself.

This morning I seem to be a writer — someone who writes — and that’s pretty straightforward. I am sitting in a sunny room with a cup of coffee on my desk and I am typing away on the keyboard. I have an intention to, later on, publish the very words that are right now slipping away from beneath my fingers.

This is what writers do. Therefore, I am a writer.

Okay, that was pretty easy so far. But this afternoon I am going to my parents’ house to help prepare their garden for the spring. Does it mean that I will then cease to be a writer and be a gardener instead? In that case, what happens with my morning’s identity in the afternoon? Does it go away? Where to?

And the next question is: am I being myself in any of these roles more than in the other? In which one? Or, in other words, which is more aligned with my authentic self?

Or maybe… I can be myself both in the morning and in the afternoon in equal measure.

Of course I can — and I am. There is no other way to be than to be myself.

However, in the pop-culture of self-improvement, we have seriously twisted the meaning of “being oneself”. While it is our natural state of being, we made it into a goal. We are telling ourselves to…