We spend most of our lives showing the version of ourselves based on what’s acceptable. Not who we really are.
You have a brilliant idea in an office meeting, but you hold it back. You think “what if I’m wrong??”. What if they all start laughing.
Or you like someone, let’s say. You know how much you could bring into that relationship.. You know you can make them feel like nobody had made them feel before… but you never express that ‘awesome’ version of you.
Or… you have soul of an artist. A writer, perhaps. A musician. Or a filmmaker. Some kind of creative. And you don’t create. You don’t even know why. It’s like you’re holding back a wild river. You feel that pressure every fucking day. You think, I’ll start tomorrow. Or when the time is right.
You want to end a relationship, but you don’t. You want to quit your job, but you don’t. You want you tell an old friend you’ve changed, and you can’t continue giving, but you don’t. You want to write a love letter to the person you love and express all your heart, but you don’t.
All you do is…. perform. Perform. Perform. The fake, acceptable, “nice person” performance. That’s your life. And after a while, you forget you’re performing. You start calling it your personality.
I have lived that life. And it was exhausting. All I wanted was to disappear. So… I numbed myself. Scrolling. Drinking. Smoking.
And you know what…. I knew exactly what I was doing and ‘why’ I was doing it. Self-awareness is really a curse. I was lying to myself. I knew it to my bones. And I was escaping because I didn’t have the guts to face the truth.
It took years to understand that I was punishing myself for something that was not even my fault. It was conditioning. How I was raised. How I was treated as a child. How my feeling were dismissed.
And all that shit made me believe: “Behave to be more acceptable”.
And once you have that toxic seed planted, you start living a fake life. And trust me, that shit take the soul out of you.
You don’t express how you really feel, you express only what won’t piss people off. You bottle up your real feelings. You “act nice” all the time, even when you want to punch someone in the face. You hide your gifts thinking what if they think you’re “too much”. You swallow you opinions. You never market your skills even when they’re absolutely brilliant. You see people who are mediocre, and still making millions.
And it hurts a lot. Because you know your potential. You know you can be the next big thing. But you just cannot understand what is it that is stopping you…
You wanna know what’s stopping you?
Fear of being yourself. Unapologetic, unedited, raw, real, honest, savage version of you that you’ve kept hidden all you life.
Unleash that version. Let it flow. Let it express.
You wanna hear the truth?
Not expressing that version is the very reason you numb yourself. The reason you scroll for hours. The reason your drink. Or smoke. Or whatever poison you’ve chosen to numb yourself. You know it very well.
How? You ask.
Stop giving a fuck about what people think. Crazy things happen in the world. Things that feel like this will change everything forever. Does it? Life moves on. People judge. People talk. And then… people forget. Something else catches their attention.
That’s just the reality of life. And once you understand it, you become unstoppable.
What are you afraid of???
Someone judging you? Someone laughing at you? Someone thinking you’re weird? Someone saying you’re arrogant? Someone saying you’re not good enough
Okay. And then what? The world ends? Your heart stops? The earth opens up and swallows you?
No.
The reality is… people misunderstand you. People give opinions. And then they go home. They eat dinner. Scroll Instagram. Worry about their own problems. And they wake up the next morning and forget about you.
Nobody remembers it forever.
Create something from your soul. That’s all that matters. Someone tells you it’s shit. So what? You can’t please everybody. That’s a truth your need to understand.
The reality is: People judge. People talk. And then… people forget.
Something else catches their attention. Another story. Or a scandal.
But the main thing is… you are still here.
The person who thinks you’re absolutely brilliant today may hate you tomorrow. That’s how life is. Stop building your life based on other people’s opinions. An authentic life doesn’t come with any guarantees.
Stop lying to yourself just to be acceptable. Trust your soul. Live your life honestly.
You know who you are… and you know what feels right in your heart. You know what you edit and why you edit yourself.
Just stop doing that.
Be real. Be unapologetically you. Let the world bend.
– Karun
If this resonated, you will love my book ‘Born to Stand Out’. Get it Here (or the ebook version Here).
Being unapologetic means you stop feeling sorry for existing as you naturally are.
It means you stop cutting off pieces of yourself just because someone else finds them uncomfortable.
To stop contorting ourselves into shapes that feel safe to others, hoping that maybe this time, we’ll finally be acceptable just as we are.
You were not meant to live as a tourist in your own life.
Thank you for this, Karun. Knowing yourself means little if you keep overruling what you know. A helpful reflection for me is, “Would I still choose this if nobody had an opinion about it?”