The truth about being yourself is that it’s harder than it seems. I’ve always been one to speak my mind; I usually don’t have a problem with saying it like it is. However, I find that I still have my hesitations, sometimes, when it comes to truly being myself. I was reminded of that this weekend when I tried my hand at rushing for a sorority. All of my closest friends from home have all gone on to rush sororities and have loved their decision to do so.
When I transferred to a new school I thought that maybe I would try it out since, as a junior, I needed to make friends fast. As rush started, though, I found myself torn between who I thought I should be and who I really am. I hated it. I couldn’t see myself buying into the life of sorority girl. I couldn’t see myself pretending to get along with every single one of my sisters. I couldn’t see myself with a big or pretending to love my little. I couldn’t see myself dedicating copious amounts of time to something I didn’t care about. I couldn’t even see myself wearing letters around campus, or anywhere else for that matter. And while it’s all well and good for the friends that I do have that are in sororities, I could physically feel in my gut while I was talking to the 10th sorority girl of the night that it seriously wasn’t for me. I willed myself not to leave early and stuck it out for the rest of the night, but on my walk back to my car I knew I couldn’t deny the fact that I wouldn’t be true to myself if I went through with the rest of the process. I dropped the next morning.
Although we usually can tell when something isn’t quite right, we are tempted to go through with it, anyways. We question our gut feeling and make counterarguments against it, thinking that maybe we’re the ones who are wrong.
Being yourself means having the courage to stand up against what’s right for others, and going with what’s right for you. It’s about taking the leap of faith that you will be okay even if you are not doing what everybody else seems to be doing. And that even when you feel like you’re the only one, you go with what feels right, because it’s better to be true to yourself than to be true to what others think of you.
With each passing year, I am more and more true to who I am. I’ve embraced my very introverted side, I’ve changed my major to what I really love to do, and I’ve held on to the people that matter to me the most. Like everyone, I still have room to improve. But I will say that once you do decide to let go of the things that don’t really matter, everything else seems to fall into place.
