{"id":1338,"date":"2011-10-27T16:36:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T20:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ccpa.scottbuckingham.ca\/blog\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2015-07-03T16:12:41","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T20:12:41","slug":"dont-be-afraid-to-be-your-own-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ccpa-accp.ca\/fr\/dont-be-afraid-to-be-your-own-person\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Be Afraid to be Your Own Person"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0T<\/em>his above all, – to thine own self be true;
\n<\/em>And it must follow, as the night the day,
\n<\/em>Thou canst not then be false to any man.
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Life is too short to be what others might expect you to be. Do not be afraid to be your own person, to express your ideas, to have faith, to believe in liberty because no one has a right to dictate your life. You are an individual uniquely inspired and worthy of a right to individuality.<\/p>\n

Children, youth, and adults struggle with the concept of being true unto themselves. We live in a society plagued with ideological stereotypes, pigeonholing, typecasting, conventionalizing, categorizing, labeling, and imaging.\u00a0 If-and-only-if, you pledge yourself to a brand, an image, a label, the right cliche, the right clothes, or the right genre, then-and-only-then, will you prove acceptable.\u00a0 Children are bombarded by what is right, what is wrong, what is fashionable, and what is unfashionable. When does this madness end and the sanity begin?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Socrates philosophical viewpoints sought to deliver thy person from personal bondage. In his philosophy, we learn that if we are to \u201cknow thyself to be wise…,\u201d then we must examine our lives fully, accepting the acceptable and changing that which needs changing.<\/p>\n

Why should we teach children to be true themselves? What good comes from examining thy personal needs, desires, wants, and dreams? Why not teach a child to simply go with the flow of life?\u00a0 After all, resistance is the cause of many problems in life.\u00a0 Why not live a life of ignorance and bliss?<\/p>\n

When we teach children to simply go with the flow<\/em>, we are teaching them to simply follow paths with which they may not desire to go.\u00a0 It is never right for someone to pose an opposition to something merely to be different, rather any opposition should come from thine heart, mind, and spirit.\u00a0 An opposing idea, concept, or life should have a purpose and positive direction.\u00a0 The oppositional personality should have a deep desire to express their own individuality.\u00a0 If a child is forcibly molded to be like somebody other than their own person, then they will either resent or resist the molding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Abraham Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Needs<\/em> describes this need to be true to thine self<\/em> as self-actualization<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization\u2026It refers to the\u00a0 desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what\u00a0he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more\u00a0 what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.<\/em><\/p>\n

If I limit my child\u2019s ambitions, then I am forcibly informing my child that they can only be what I envision.\u00a0 If I tell my child that they cannot become an astronaut, a physician, an artist, a philosopher, an author, or any other ambition; then I am in essence declaring they are only capable of becoming what I envision.\u00a0 You might be saying unto yourself; my child is not gifted, capable, or able to pursue his or her desires. Consider the following:\u00a0 What if, Professor Stephen Hawking had been forcibly redirected from pursuing his desires based on his physical limitations? Many of today\u2019s academic communities would be at a loss without the breadth of his dynamic knowledge. Furthermore, what if Sir Richard Branson had been limited based on his dyslexia? The world would have experienced losses spanning from the leisure, travel, tourism, mobile, broadband, television, radio, music festivals, finance and health.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to know thyself<\/em>, or to be true to thyself<\/em>? While there are a variety of philosophical slants, in simple, it means to follow one\u2019s heart, desires, intentions, goals, and quests. Frederick Neitzsche described it as \u201c… (the) one thing (that) is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself… only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims…\u201d In other words, if a person is swayed from following his or her desires, then they are apt to contain within themselves a heart of resentment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What if my child fails? Is it not better to have failed, than never having attempted a desire of one\u2019s life? As a society, we need to stop seeing failure as a bad thing. Failure is merely a landmark of a task attempted, no more than success is a landmark of a task achieved.\u00a0 Moreover, landmarks are simply the place within our lives that we have attempted to live.\u00a0 \u201cYour life, the essence of your being, is not based on your own successes or failures, nor is it based on the successes or failures of anyone involved directly or indirectly in your life.\u201d (Brown, 2010, p. 19)<\/p>\n

Children should be encouraged to pursue their dreams. If you disagree with your child\u2019s choices, ambitions, dreams, or desires, discuss your concerns, but do not place a damper on your child\u2019s internal drive. A child\u2019s flame of desire rarely can be distinguished by a peer, however, a parental figure or teacher can act as an extinguisher nullifying the flame.\u00a0 Children need you to be their greatest advocate and ally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If a child fails, encourage them to get up, dust themselves off, and to review their pursuits.\u00a0 In some cases, failure makes the child aware that they might reconsider the pathway of their pursuits. In other cases, failure ignites the child\u2019s flame of desire, setting it ablaze making the desire a deepened goal of that child.\u00a0 A child should always <\/em>be complimented and praised for attempting a pursuit.\u00a0 A child should never be scolded, made to feel worthless, devalued, pathetic, or incapable.\u00a0 If a child fails to reach a goal, encourage the child, remembering to compliment the child\u2019s ambition to pursue a particular task.<\/p>\n

Finally, \u201clife is a combination of our positive and negative choices.\u201d (Brown, 2010, p. 17)\u00a0 Whether our choices bring about perceived failure or success, we should always be reassured that our goodness lies within. We need to be the directors of our screenplay called life.\u00a0 If we are being true unto our own person, then we will pursue the diligence of our heart, mind, and spirit.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown, A. D. (2010) Waiting to live<\/em>: IUniverse.<\/p>\n

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50<\/em>, 370-96.<\/p>\n

Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.).<\/em> New York: Harper & Row.<\/p>\n

Pearson, K. A., Large, D. (2006) The Nietzsche reader<\/em>: John Wiley & Sons<\/p>\n

Skinner, N., Brewer, N. (2002) The dynamics of threat and challenge appraisals prior to stressful achievements.\u00a0 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. <\/em>83 (3) 678-92.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0This above all, – to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet Life is too short to be what others might expect you to be. Do not be afraid to be your own person, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001014,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[381,382,383,384,385,329,356,386,387,32,78,388,389,390,391,392,393,394,395],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parentingchildrenandtheclassroom","tag-abraham-maslow","tag-ambitions","tag-burrhus-frederic-skinner","tag-choices","tag-desires","tag-dr-asa-don-brown","tag-encouragement","tag-failures","tag-frederick-nietzsche","tag-goals","tag-identity","tag-limitation","tag-motivation","tag-personal-direction","tag-personality","tag-self-confidence","tag-self-direction","tag-socrates","tag-successes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDon't Be Afraid to be Your Own Person - L'Association canadienne de counseling et de psychoth\u00e9rapie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpa-accp.ca\/dont-be-afraid-to-be-your-own-person\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don't Be Afraid to be Your Own Person - L'Association canadienne de counseling et de psychoth\u00e9rapie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0This above all, – to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet Life is too short to be what others might expect you to be. 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