Chapter-1 Who are You?

 Who are you?

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We know a lot of things in life, either by proper education or by experiences or both, we happen to have gained a lot of knowledge.

 Knowledge, that we use on a daily basis, or the knowledge for which, we often question ourselves, whether it was even needed or the knowledge we find really interesting that we wish to dig deeper into or the knowledge of things and people around us. 

We know a lot of people and we often hold strong opinions of them. But do we know ourselves? If I ask you today, who are you? Would you just tell me your name and end the conversation there? Or would you name some of your achievements and possessions and relationships as an identity of yours?

Forget me, what if you ask yourself, who are you? Or rather “Who am I?”  Would you be able to answer yourself honestly? Not the job interview answer, not what others have been telling you about you, but an authentic answer for who do you think you are inside out? What is your opinion of yourself? Do you even know yourself?

Why is the knowledge of everything else in the world, more important than the knowledge of self? Why most of us don’t ask ourselves “Who am I?” ? Do we find ourselves not as important, to be given much time and attention?

It’s funny how we don’t put much efforts in getting to know ourselves, and expect the world to understand us and our feelings. How we, ourselves, don’t want to acknowledge many of our feelings, but we hope for one magical person to know them and comfort us through them. Instead of taking the initiative of being that magical person in our as well as others’ lives, we wait for “destiny” to make us meet somebody to fill in those shoes. Funny.

Or is it the fear of losing the image we have in people’s eyes, the fear of losing the identity given to us by everyone, that we do not dare to ask ourselves who we actually are? A lot of times, in order to please everyone around us, we either try to fit in their description of us or pretend to be someone we’re not. Often many of us struggle to maintain the image we’ve established in everyone’s eyes, scared to let go of everything we’re not, because we don’t know whether who we truly are, would be accepted and loved by people and most importantly we’re scared that even we might not like our authenticity.

But if we do decide to discover our truth, the first question that arises is : How do we even define ourselves? We define other people based on our interactions with them, be it as small as a second, or be it a familiarity of years. Their behaviours, thoughts, opinions on any matter, choices, likes and dislikes, all these things help us to build our opinion on someone, we consider our opinions as, more or less, the definition of that person. Sometimes these opinions are held strong and sometimes they’re rather flexible. But these little things help us create an idea of who this person is, in our heads. Same goes for us, pay attention to your behaviours, thoughts, likes and dislikes, choices, your interactions with yourself and other people. Introspect. This word, introspection, doesn’t mean to figure out who was at fault during an incident. Its true meaning is to know ourselves. At the end of every single day, reflect upon everything that happened today, ask yourself,  why did you behave the way you did? Why did you think the way you did? Why are these your opinions of someone or something?  Every time you do something, pay attention to the reasons why you’re making these choices, be it as small as choosing a burger in the canteen or as big as being hateful towards someone. You deserve to know everything about yourself.

Ask yourself, why is it that different people know a different version of you? What are your fears that keep you from showing the most authentic You in front of the world?  Be honest, would you like yourself if you met yourself? Answer all the whys which come to your mind along with this question. But remember to be honest. And there you will start getting to know yourself.

You are a magnificent representative of the varieties that exist in this infinite creation. You are flawed, you have insecurities, but you have all these qualities too which make this world a better place, someone feels grateful to have met you, someone feels happy looking at your face everyday. You have someone you love absolutely very much and you make such a difference in that person’s world because they have someone in their life who loves them, whether they know it or not.

You don’t have to hide, you don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not. You just have to be yourself with all the pride with which you were created by this universe. The Universe is so precise, that everything here works in a perfect balance. You are you for a reason. You were never supposed to be somebody else. Then why would you waste the universe's efforts of creating the authentic you, by pretending to be someone you’re not? 

Embrace yourself, love yourself, if you have flaws that you are able to change, change them so that you feel good about yourself and become a better version of you in your eyes. Patiently, make those efforts for yourself and not for other people, but if those flaws cannot be changed, accept them because they separate you from the rest of the world, they are a part of you, they don’t define you, but they also contribute in making you who you are. You are much more than just your flaws. You are this absolutely beautiful person. You are You..

Introspect. Know yourself. Love yourself. Be yourself.

🤍Love

Charvi🌸