Round three. Let’s try to get this be true to yourself ideal under wraps finally as I kinda jumped ship again in my last rambling. We know where these ideals come from—Nurture. And we know that making decisions can alter your life—What If. Now let’s see how well we can stay on this path. When faced with a decision, we must decide how the outcome will affect our lives. I don’t mean deciding what to eat for breakfast, but it could be as simple as what time to leave for work in the morning (or whether to even go to work for that matter). This is where nurture and being true to yourself will cross paths.
Have you made decisions your whole life based on nurture and this, to you is being true to yourself? Or, based on nurture, have you decided to throw those beliefs in the trash because you do not want to end up like every other miserable person around you? To you, THIS has become being true to yourself. Either way, you HAVE made a decision. Whether it is correct or not is based on your happiness. Because happiness will be our barometer of successful decision making.
We will throw some scenarios out there. You believe that whatever you do in life, the result needs to be happiness. Does this mean that to be true to yourself, you may need to do some awful things to get ahead in life? Is your happiness based on wealth and you would drive the bus over a co-worker to get ahead in your company just so you can have more money? Is being true to yourself worth potentially ruining another human being’s life? How important is wealth to you? Can you still get by with less? Or would you only truly be happy with more? Let’s be careful about being true to yourself at all costs.
Again, your end result of life decisions is based on happiness. Is your happiness based on doing good in this world and helping others? Does this mean that wealth is not at all important to you? Would you constantly contribute monetarily to good causes based on being true to yourself even if it means you cannot pay your own bills? Do you downsize your life to compensate for this? Do you spend your waking hours volunteering for worthy causes which in turn means that you cannot afford to hold down a good job? How much does this affect the relationships in your life? If you have a significant other, do you constantly worry or bicker over how to pay the bills because you have short changed your money making abilities so you can help others in need? Does this truly make you happy?!
I think I need to re-evaluate the thought process of being true to yourself. This seems like it is actually a truly idiotic ideal. When making decisions, especially life altering decisions, there needs to be a give and take, a yin and yang. There are pros and cons to everything. The process needs to be based on weighing these effects out. Being true to yourself will be part of the process, but it cannot be the ultimate decision maker. Humans are stupid by nature, only our good decisions can make us smart. You must come up with a process which will help you decide. And, understand that with most decisions, you are not the only person who will be affected. Life altering decision making is risky business and cannot be taken lightly. In the end, being true to yourself, in most cases, is just plain stupid.