It has come to my attention that for the sake of others, I change things about myself, my mannerisms, and even the way I write to appease others. I'm not completely sure why I do it. Perhaps, it is a coping mechanism that I have developed from years in the closet. I have a tendency to make others feel comfortable, even at the expense of my own comfort.
When I was in one of my fiction classes, I was writing a dark fairy tale. I had it all planned out and I was excited to write it. I used the voice of the narrator in a southern accent throughout the story, dialogue, and all. When it was reviewed, my professor told me the way it was written was confusing and since I'm not a published author, I can't just write a story the way I want to because I have to prove that I can write first. In addition to this, my professor told me she doesn't like fantasy, so I needed to make it more reality based.
In spite of my desire to keep it the way it was because I knew that it would be a great story, I changed the story to a dark story about a murderer neighbor and only left the dialogue with the accent. (I still didn't understand why my narrator couldn't narrate in her voice, accent, and all. After all, Mark Twain wrote like that and now David Mitchell, in Cloud Atlas, did the same thing.) I changed my story for the comfort of my teacher and the story lost its flow and wonder.
In the book Think on These Things, the writings and essays of Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti is discussing education, knowing yourself, freedom from conforming, and other subjects. In one of the essays, The Problem of Freedom, Krishnamurti writes:
This is the problem with changing yourself for the comfort of others: you take the flow and wonder from life and from the beauty of difference. In changing yourself, you allow the world to change you at its pleasure. You become a chameleon; you change your appearance to protect yourself and to appease others. By changing yourself, you conform to the standards of others. If we all conform to a standard, the differences that make us beautiful and wondrous, become monotone and drab. Don't change yourself for others. You are a diamond and you are perfect. Be your difference and shine for all to see.
When I was in one of my fiction classes, I was writing a dark fairy tale. I had it all planned out and I was excited to write it. I used the voice of the narrator in a southern accent throughout the story, dialogue, and all. When it was reviewed, my professor told me the way it was written was confusing and since I'm not a published author, I can't just write a story the way I want to because I have to prove that I can write first. In addition to this, my professor told me she doesn't like fantasy, so I needed to make it more reality based.
In spite of my desire to keep it the way it was because I knew that it would be a great story, I changed the story to a dark story about a murderer neighbor and only left the dialogue with the accent. (I still didn't understand why my narrator couldn't narrate in her voice, accent, and all. After all, Mark Twain wrote like that and now David Mitchell, in Cloud Atlas, did the same thing.) I changed my story for the comfort of my teacher and the story lost its flow and wonder.
In the book Think on These Things, the writings and essays of Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti is discussing education, knowing yourself, freedom from conforming, and other subjects. In one of the essays, The Problem of Freedom, Krishnamurti writes:
The function of education, then, is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but to be yourself all the time. And this is the most difficult thing to do whether you are beautiful or ugly, whether you are envious or jealous, always to be what you are but understand it. To be yourself is very difficult because what you think you are is ignoble, and if you could only change what you are into something noble it would be marvelous, but that never happens whereas, if you look at what you actually are and understand it, then in the very understanding there is a transformation. So, freedom lies not in trying to become something different, not in doing whatever you happen to feel like doing, nor in following the authority of tradition of your parents, of your guru, but in understanding what you are from moment to moment (11).Krishnamurti is saying that it is important to know yourself and to understand what you are. In education and in other aspects of life, we should not want to be anybody else but who we are at all times of the day. We free ourselves when we refuse to become someone other than who we are and knowing who that is.
This is the problem with changing yourself for the comfort of others: you take the flow and wonder from life and from the beauty of difference. In changing yourself, you allow the world to change you at its pleasure. You become a chameleon; you change your appearance to protect yourself and to appease others. By changing yourself, you conform to the standards of others. If we all conform to a standard, the differences that make us beautiful and wondrous, become monotone and drab. Don't change yourself for others. You are a diamond and you are perfect. Be your difference and shine for all to see.
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