by Mike Aux-Tinee.
The little pig was so comforting to me because he was wholly content to be a little pig; and Mr. Leslie Stephen is in a certain degree exemplary and comforting to me, because he is wholly content to be Mr. Leslie Stephen; while I am miserable because I am always wanting to be something else than I am. – John Ruskin
To be content with yourself should be a golden rule. Just like the other golden rules of be nice, share with others and take a nap. It should start with our parents, reaffirmed the first day of kindergarten and on throughout life.
But sadly, it’s not.
I am not sure when and where it started. This phenomenon of not being content in who I am – the way mother nature made me.
There is a struggle day in and day out trying to emulate others. We dress and speak like them. Whatever we need to do, it’s done.
The thing we do not understand, their life is a facade. If we looked a little deeper, we would discover, they are not what we thought.
When we are not content with ourself, we are admitting, this other person is better than us. Maybe there is something about them that we value more, that we wish we could do.
Why are we not content being who we are?
Is this really all that scary?
Well, apparently so!
Why am I not content just being Mike?
There have been so many people tell me how to live, how to act and what I should be once I grew up. I was either too serious or not serious enough.
I wish I would have come to the conclusion, that I can not make all of the people happy all of the time. I should have been content with just being Mike. And not wasting so much time and energy trying to please everyone but myself.
Is that possible? That I can be content with who I am? To express my individuality and still have friends?
The answer to that is yes!
There are so many people in the world. I am going to encounter like-minded people and because of our commonalities, we will become friends.
When I am content with myself, others will see this and want to be my friend. I will engender trust. We gravitate to those we can trust. We are able to confide in them, knowing they will not betray our confidence.
It’s time to be content with the way I am. To understand that I have both strengths and weaknesses, and that is alright. It’s time to stop judging myself so critically and start to cultivate my individuality.
It will take some time, to learn to be content with ourselves. To uncover the person we have always been, and let them out in the sunshine.
It’s a radical and life altering concept – learning to be content. And it’s also very liberating.
Peace dudes!
A life off the beaten path 
Nice post, I totally agree. I actually posted something related on my Facebook Page today that said: “It’s important to love yourself and be content with who you are while making an effort to change the things you struggle with. Loving yourself requires acceptance of your faults and weaknesses, but also means that you are working to improve them, not justify them. For if you feed your mind with excuses, you will never hunger for change.” My thoughts were mainly talking about people that accept negative things about themselves (overweight, rude, lazy, etc.) and just write them off as “That’s just who I am”. I see your post is mainly about not worrying about what others say about you and just be yourself, which is an equally important way to live life. I think people can definitely motivate you and inspire you to become a better person, but you should never try to be just like someone else, just be you.
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment about this post!
I agree with you, we should not just write off something negative about ourself in an attempt to justify our action (or lack there of).