Sometimes we have to stop and think about why we want what we want. External goals defined by feelings of vanity, or the simple need to “be someone,” can take us away from our true desires and, above all, from ourselves Are you the person they wanted you to be or did you manage to be who you really are?
The need to be someone can be, at best, the secret need to obtain the approval of others. When we need others to tell us that we are precious, an inner voice can scream that the real reason is that we do not approve. , to be someone? It’s the perfect mask for us to feel valued by others.
- When we are born.
- They prepare and predispose us to try to achieve material success.
- In the family.
- School and social context.
- It is common to think that you have to be “someone in life”.
- This means bringing a sense of frustration and unmet need.
- It is true that people need to come true.
- As we see in Maslow’s theory of needs.
- However.
- This motivation should not create a blockage in the natural ability to be authentic.
To be authentic is to be in touch with our skills and develop them according to our potential, that is, not to base the motivation on “wanting to be someone in life”, on the contrary, it must come from the vital and natural. impulse to express ourselves, to discover and seek a way out for ourselves as we are, without having to disguise ourselves in other ways or people.
? I am nobody; It’s just me. Wherever you are, I’m something, and now I’m something you can’t help. Ray Bradbury?
Why are there people who live just to “be someone”?And how are there others who don’t devote a minute of their thoughts to this?Maybe they already know they’re somebody. Therefore, they do not need to be valued with rules that measure only ego and vanity, characteristics that, in turn, reflect a lack of love for others and an excess of love for themselves.
According to Edward Young, an English poet of the pre-Romantic period remembered mainly his work?Night Thoughts? (Night Thoughts), vanity is the legitimate and necessary girl of ignorance, man, in the words of this author, is a blind man who does not know how to see himself, much has been written about this phrase, but here we highlight how vanity can blind a man so much that he can end up not knowing who he really is.
The need to be someone leads us to value others based on their successes, their possessions, their appearance and other ego-imposed indicators. However, actually, “be someone?” It’s not related to external merits. On the contrary, the real goal should be to find out who we really are.
“What fools are those who depart from the real, true and lasting, and instead pursue the fleeting forms of the material world, forms that are mere reflections in the mirror of the ego?”Han Shan?
Most people believe they have become themselves. We believe that external influences do not play an important role in our goals. However, we often forget the influence of others on what we want.
Many patients who come to a psychologist’s office come complaining about an existential crisis, often because they suddenly start to wonder why they’re where they are, people often realize they’ve chosen the wrong path after being there for a long time.
In some of these crises, many people begin to realize that they are the only thing they criticize, in some cases, they are also more like their parents than they thought, it is normal to learn through observation and acquire the qualities of others, but we have to be careful: the need to be someone can lead us to give up our true dreams.
The ego, pride and vanity are human feelings that will not magically disappear, they have their adaptive functions and are even necessary on certain occasions, when these feelings shape our actions, we can build a life that has been taught to us from outside, not life that we really want to build.
“I know very well what I’m running away from, but not what I’m looking for. “Michel de Montaigne?