Letting Go Of Who I Wanted To Be
I had a family friend tell me, “You can’t change who you are,” but oh did I try. I vividly remember her statement stinging when I heard it. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to be able to choose who I was going to be.
In my fantasy world, someday I would be the kind of person who woke up at 6 am, did some yoga, went on a morning walk, and leisurely ate breakfast while reading or maybe listening to a record before my work day began. Then, after work, I’d knock out a few things on my to-do list, exercise, cook a healthy dinner, and complete my night routine with lights out by 10 pm. I’d be calm and relaxed, happy and positive, and life would feel like a breeze if I could just change my habits and instincts. It never seemed like a fantasy to me, and I’m sure plenty of people out there have a life extremely close to the one I just detailed. Unfortunately for me, I’m not one of them.
For a long time, I blamed myself for my inability to become this ideal person. I thought it was purely a lack of self-control, motivation, and willpower. It turns out my family friend knew what she was talking about. This dream life I envisioned completely ignored one crucial factor, nature. I can make myself go to sleep at 10 pm every night and wake up at 6 am every morning and eventually, I might even get used to it enough to not feel exhausted, but I’ll never be a morning person because it simply isn’t my nature. My mother will tell you that since birth I have never wanted to go to sleep. I’ve always been a night owl, and I always will be. The only place I went wrong was trying to fight that instead of working with it.
That’s just one example, but the concept carries through all areas of my life. I can’t change my personality, my interests, or my nature. What I can change is the relationship I have with them. Likely due to my OCD, I have a bad habit of categorizing things as good or bad. Waking up early is good in my mind, so sleeping in late is bad. I think being calm and easygoing is good, so being neurotic and inflexible is bad. I’ve slowly come to accept that the categorizations I’ve spent my whole life believing are figments of my imagination. I made them up. None of these things are good or bad, they’re just different. I’ve wasted so much time telling myself that everything I am is wrong instead of questioning the guidelines I’m judging myself against. After this realization, I’ve decided to let go of the person I wanted to be because that is the only way I can begin to love and accept the person I am. I have a hunch that finding the things within my authentic self that I do need to work on will be a lot easier when I’m not trying to build a new persona from scratch. Can you relate to this? Do you have anything you’ve been trying to change that might be better to just accept? I’d love to hear from you!