Why are people not being who they are?

Like I said in my third blog post, my next blog post will be about being who you are. I'm sure that all of you have at least heard stuff about being who you are and not what others want you to be, from the media,and even from celebrities. I agree with this, being who you are will make your life easier in the end. It might be hard to be who you are in the beginning, but in the end, it's a lot better than being somebody you're not. I found this out the hard way by trying to be somebody that I was not, and that just lead to disaster. I'm also sure that most of you reading this post will have also tried to be who you aren't before too. So, if a lot of people say "be who you are" and even celebrities encourage it, then how come most of us just aren't being who we truly are anymore?

One of these reasons could be due to influence. People around a person could influence someone to be somebody that they aren't. For example, if someone is a person that cares about school and his grades, he could be influenced by people around him who drink and do drugs. If the person gets influenced enough by this, then who he/she truly is can change, or he is no longer who he/she is. Influence can quickly change parts of who we are, and we need to have the power to say no to that influence, before it controls and takes over us. When that happens, it can be too late to undo that. Once influence changes who you truly are, it can be difficult to undo it and change yourself back to who you were before. Being who you are and standing up for it should be able to easily prevent this, as I have learned that from my experience too.

Another reason that I've noticed with myself and others is fear. If who someone is does not fit in with most of the people around them, then that person could be scared to show who they are since he/she isn't "normal". An open-ended example with this would be a guy who is gay, but doesn't want to show it to others because that wouldn't help him fit in with others and he wouldn't be considered "normal" by most people. It's also possible that people fear what others will think about them when they are being who they truly are. For example, a person could be really smart, but he/she doesn't want to show it to everybody around them since people could start bullying him/her for being a nerd, or geek. There are more reasons to why people don't want to be who they are, but I wanted to talk about these two since these are the main ones that I've noticed with myself and the people around me.

Here are some "be yourself" quotes that I found and would like to share: 
http://www.quotegarden.com/be-self.html

My Opinion

Well, I don't have too much to say about being who you are. But I believe that you should always try to be who you are around people, even if they will think you are weird or strange. You may not fit in with some people, and others might just hate you for who you are. However, in the end, being who you are will make your life easier if you focus on the people who don't hate your true self. If you were to live a life where you were just who somebody wants you to be and not who you truly are and yet you still fit in, that would be harder since being somebody you aren't won't always be easy or make you happy. But now, quite some people are starting to hide who they are and they are just being who the people around them are. Don't do this. This will make your life harder, as I know from previous experiences. Don't let the people around you control what kind of person you are. Instead, you need to stand up for who you are and not let others take that away from you.

Well, this is all I have to say. My next blog post will be out later today! :)

~Vincent