Be true to yourself
Autor: Graciely Santos | Publicado: 2013-08-18T00:27:00-07:00



It is 3 pm and I can't sleep. Even the book and the wine could not make me sleep. So, let's (try to) write a little bit.
I am thinking a lot about an statement: "Stay true to yourself". In other version, "Be faithful to yourself".I tried to think if there was any difference between being true and being faithful. I still can't answer this, but I would like to discuss a bit about ethics, about be yourself and about values.Today, I was discusing with some physicist friends about ethics in the job. This "academic world" exerts a lot of pressure on us. We have to publish a lot of papers, being too much competitive, but, sometimes, there are somethings that did not go well on research. In few minutes, appears that "friend" saying: "oh, I saw you did not publish nothing this semester, but I know you need the grant for the project, so I will put you name in my paper and it is ok. One day you can do it for me!"Seriously, I still do not know if &nbsp;my opinion is pretty much strict about it or if I have no idea about networking but, don't you think this is wrong? If you did not participate in a project/work, why do you need to have your name in the paper? And worse, you're kind of owing a favor to someone!In life and relationships there are some similiar behaviors. How many times we are not sincere with ourselves? What is the problem in say "I don't want to taste marijuana cause I think it is not good for me" or "I don't like samba/funk/pagode. I like you, but I want to stay at home tonight" or still "No, what you said did not hurt me and I'm totally ok"?

Ok, you can argue people are not ready to listen the truth, and you are right. But what about the lies we tell to ourselves? What about our values? What about being sincere with ourselves?I think when you don't have pressure it is not difficult to make a decision, to tell the truth, say what you really think about a subject. The point is this fucking social pressure. This stuff makes a lot of effort to pretend what we really are.You need to be cool to be accepted by a social group. Almost everybody has this needy. But in the middle of the way, we lost ourselves. &nbsp;Our friendships should be exclusively by our personality, for what we are. But we pretend a lot trying to be accept by a social group and sometimes some of our basic values get lost.Yesterday, I was talking to some friends about relationships. And, yeah, this is my favorite subject. We were talking that after a betrayal people have a lot of necessity of turn it up. But in this processes they forget being faithful to themselves. We want to go to all night parties, kiss all the guys/girls in the party to prove to ourselves we are fine. And it does not matter if you never agreeded with the idea of "kissing a lot of girls in the same night". You forget being faithful to yourself, to your values and you do everything you always hated or you thought would never do. Trying to turn it up it's also a kind of pressure. Almost everybody already did it, tried to self assert him/herself.Yesterday I discovered a perfect song for one of the most important moments of my life. It was about the end of a relationship. I could fight and try to stay with the guy, but I did not do this cause I really don't believe you need to "fight for love". These things are natural and they are good. Of course I stayed with the doubt for a while. I lost myself trying to recover my confidence. I was not true to myself many times. It was a fight every fucking day. I needed to prove to myself I did the right choice and I needed to prove to myself I could find another guy very fast. When you're someone who really believes in love and this kind of stuff, you really feel yourself disappointed. I was not faithful to my feelings, my values, what I used to believe. You can argue "it is ok, you're suffering and you just tried to get better soon" or still say "everybody needs to change". It is a point, but it does not matter. Be faithful to yourself is do something you have a great probability of not going to regret. You still can argue that thinking this way, I will not live and always do the same things. You're still right. But, don't you think there are some limits for ethical and values? Don't you think we can learn some important lessons without lost ourselves?People usually say they did not regret about their decisions. I confess there are somethings I would not like to do again. I did somethings it was not according to values I used to believe I felt some part of me dying. I felt myself being another person. This girl today it is not the same two years ago. Nobody (except our parents) tell us that the most important thing is being true to ourselves, being faithful to some values that can not be selled or negociated.I think this is good, learn some important lessons and bla, bla, bla, but everything in nature has an energy conservation law. You can have more experience, being "more mature"... but you also start to die. Your innocence starts to go away.... you always lost something.Maybe in the future, I will be the kind of professor that accepts my name in the paper or offer this kind of favor to a friend... maybe I don't mind of being another person. All I know is that I need do struggle this stuff everyday...As the song says: "Cause I'm a man, not a boy&nbsp;And there are things you can't avoid...You have to face them when you're not prepared to face them...&nbsp;And I don't know how a man decides what's right for his own life
It's all a mystery"

I think the most important thing is try to don't let the "real me" dies. The challenge is try to be faithful to values we spend a lot of time thinking about and that we decided it was the best for our life. Of course everybody changes and this is life... but, for me, there are somethings you can't simply don't mind about.&nbsp;This could be mean you're dying everyday...