To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight. — E.E. Cummings.
In this time of social media and immense pressure beginning at early childhood, one must struggle night and day simply to be oneself. A football player is expected to be violent off the field as well as on the field. A librarian is expected to be quiet and mousy even away from the library. A lawyer is expected to be argumentative and sneaky even outside of the courtroom. Yet I know football players who are gentle as lambs, librarians who are strong and outspoken, and even lawyers who listeners and above board. But each in their own way engages in a daily struggle to be themselves not what others expect them to be.
I fear for our children and hope that parents will help their children overcome the daily pressures that come from peer pressure and social media bullying.
A question to ask yourself is — “Who am I, and what or who is trying to prevent me from being myself?”
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