Medve Media

From a young age, most are told that if you want success, you better kiss the ass of all the people who hold your potential prosperity in their hands. Right? It doesn’t really matter what age you are or what industry you’re currently working in, there are always gonna be people superior to you in title of whom you must impress in order to gain your own enhanced status or title. Sometimes these people are our idols and we worship the ground they walk on. We learn from them and aspire to be like them someday. However,  most times, these people above us are the biggest self righteous pinheads we’ve ever had the misfortune to meet and dedicate our time to. Sound familiar?

Now, the real question here is, how do you find the perfect balance of being the person you truly are and being the person that others want you to be?  I think it’s a lifelong challenge (does that sound wonky coming from a seventeen year old?) and it sucks some people aren’t prepared for the task. We all know those certain people that get so enthralled in their own ‘persona’ it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish who they are anymore. We take it for arrogance and egocentrism when it’s really something with more depth to it, but we’ll get into that another day. We see this a lot in our society, especially with celebrities put onto this platform we give them. Some buy into their own persona in such an immense way that they simply cannot recognize themselves without the mask they show the world. And when that ‘easy come, easy go’ status is taken away from them by the same world that gave it to them, the mask suddenly becomes worthless. That’s when you know you’re in trouble. When the mask you’ve spent your entire life investing into… when the same mask that becomes apart of own skin is removed therefore apart of themselves is gone.. suddenly becomes worthless within the blink of an eye?  How do you recover? You become what we pretended to be. You became what the world wanted you to be instead of who you are.  How can you possibly recover from that? You wonder why shows like “Celebrity Rehab” are in existence?! These people are completely devastated. Can you blame them? When you’re accustomed to a certain lifestyle that is as valuable as it is easily taken away, you’re bound for trouble.

The important thing to learn from these people (and there certainly are a ton of things to learn) is that we must be true to ourselves at all times.  Originality is key to our prosperity, although it may be hard to remember sometimes. People can so focused on making themselves more acceptable and likeable to a certain demographic that the qualities that make them great and unique to everyone are lost in the process. Why take the risk? Wouldn’t it just be easier to be the real you everywhere you are?  Let the person you are be the person the world knows, not a modified version. Believe it or not most people have a good bullshit radar anyway and that superficial quality is recognized from a mile away and not kindly met. It is for me anyway.  Certain people in our life seem to be the keeper to the key that unlocks the box that ultimately holds our success, and we relentlessly work for that moment when it’s finally handed to us.  But here’s the kicker: We’re the keeper to our own key! We have it in our hands the whole time, we just take decades and decades to recognize its there. We’re so busy moulding ourselves in order to earn the key that when we finally get it, it’s as bittersweet as the journey was to receive it.

Love the person you are. Don’t let yourself be wasted away in order to make someone else happy because in the end, you have to live with yourself, not them. Your life is your message to the world. Make sure it’s unique, original and inspiring. Make it authentic.