Day 8: Accepting myself for who I am

There are several things I keep my feet on and there are several things I try out in my life. Some say that I am good at it and some say that I am bad at it. But, by the end of the day, I was never proud of who I was, but was always looking at a space to improvise myself. I wanted to be different and I wanted to stand different. There are several situations where I was embarrassed of who I was, and also of how I behaved. I only wanted to hide my flaws so that nobody should know it. I wanted to be the best of everything, and I tried everything.

I tried music because I liked the sound of it; I tried language because I liked the flow of it; I tried art because I liked the colours and I felt that they could speak; I tried talks because I liked the flow of thoughts; I tried cooking, because I liked the flavours of food; I tried anything and everything that crossed my way, and never remembered that - "Jack of all trades will master none." I simply wanted to master everything, because I thought that is what I wanted in life.

I was good at something I tried, and I was pathetically bad at certain things. For example, my rice payasam tasted the best, while my milk payasam was too sweet to eat. Even though I was considerably good at making rice payasam, I couldn't take the fact that my milk payasam was a flop. I identified much with my flaws than my strengths, and I started to deny self-love.

I looked at others who were doing good, and wanted to be like them, but never thought I could be the person who I wanted to be. This created a huge void in my life, and I was never happy for who I was. I smiled at others, and laughed with them too, but deep down in my heart, I was only wondering if I was worth it.

It took me so many years to understand that the real happiness comes with accepting myself for who I was, and not having a measuring scale within my brain to always live upto. When I started to accept myself for who I was, I had little to worry about what others will think of me and that gave me clarity about who I actually wanted to become.

"Accepting myself for who I am" is one of the good decisions I have taken in my life. Accepting yourself for who you are is not pride, and it is not self-boosting. It is just being content with who you are.