Self-Actualization Comes with Honesty

By: Kali Lamparelli
Posted In: Opinion

I look in the mirror after another seemingly difficult day and I think to myself damn I hate you right now, this moment. I can forgive that, eventually, I think. I pull my hands through my wet, tangled hair, look at my dark, sometimes sad eyes, and I know that at the end of this particular day that in truth it is exhausting to be honest with myself and be who I was born to be. I go to my five classes in a week; I work my two jobs, I write my papers, and then deal with the rest of my life, daily. The hardest part to my undergraduate life for me, in this moment, is being who I am and not apologizing for it.

If I admit who I am, I risk an immense amount of judgment and criticism as well as loss within myself and of relationships. When you’re 18 and you get to college, it is like a playground awaiting adventures and discoveries. We spend half the time lying to others and ourselves about who we are. Some use makeup to create a mask of control, others dumb themselves down, and many create fantasy worlds of insecurities they can hold tightly to. We become insomniacs waiting for our “new” lives to begin. Some of us hide ourselves in substances and others hide quietly in bed-scared that life is beginning, scared of who we are without our parental figures. The only thing we are afraid of is being ourselves.

It takes courage to walk alone in who you are. We lie to ourselves everyday saying this is who I am, but how many of us stop at the end of our day and actually examine who we are? Are we just images that others have projected of us? Is that “A” something we really want, something we believe defines us? Do I really like chocolate or did my favorite magazine tell me that women are programmed to love the sweet darkness that dissolves effortlessly on the tongue in moments of stress? Do I make my bed because my mother taught me to wakeup and make it everyday as though life has purpose in the making of my bed? Do I ask so many questions in hopes that an answer will be stated clearly in a way that will heal me?

The hardest part of living my life is being truthful to myself. I’m honest to others about who I am. I don’t like chocolate, I love coffee, believe tanning will cause wrinkles, forget names but remember everyone’s life story, love working, hate my procrastination problem, and believe firmly that everyone has a right to grow into every possible ounce of who they can be. I see greatness in everything and find my breath gone from the beauty of the world. I’m realistically unrealistic, I’m poetically tragic and severely, insanely emotional. I forgive myself for this and fear no admission of these things.

Are you strong enough to be who you are?