Some Unsolicited #13

Some months ago we started a series in which I share some completely unsolicited advice… if you’re looking to pick up from the beginning, you can do so here, or read all the subsequent posts here.?

Long story short (since the initial post was some nine-thousand words): I wrote a book that you can read here; however, instead of leaving it as an e-book that very few people will ever read (it is titled “Some Unsolicited Advice” after all), I figured it’s worth sharing the points and lessons learned in a more consumable format, as a rolling blog series where I add one or two new items every week (or every other week, depending on how much time I end up having), making for quicker and easier reading than dumping an e-book and calling it a day. And in this way, over the course of a year (or less, depending on the cadence), all the points will get shared in bite-size, more easily readable chunks. Today, we continue with the next point of this series…

13. Accept yourself.

Of course, this would be the next point after "love yourself". But isn’t this largely the same as “loving yourself?” I’m glad you asked! At least in my mind, accepting yourself isn’t necessarily one-in-the-same as loving yourself. There’s a meaningful distinction between being able to care about yourself and coming to terms with who you are. It might feel like splitting hairs, but even if it’s a pedantic dissection, as far as I’m concerned, it’s still worth emphasizing the importance and value of remembering to understand and accept yourself for who you are and, equally so, who you are not.

The idea of accepting yourself for who you are is, of course, incredibly cliché. But for as cliché as it may be (and many clichés are clichés for a reason), it’s also something I believe most of us struggle with on a near-daily basis. And in this regard, it is an incredibly important component in being able to love ourselves, as well being able to live a fulfilled life that maximize who we are.

In terms of accepting oneself, there are two primary components to talk about: (a) recognizing and accepting who you are, your capabilities, and characteristics; and (b) accepting who you are in relation to everything and everyone else. Said differently, accepting yourself (at least in this context) is made up of accepting who you are objectively (height, weight, age, looks, etc.), as well as accepting your attributes within the context of comparison to others (faster, slower, larger, smaller). If we can look honestly at ourselves in terms of our natural strengths and abilities (being the best at X and not the best at Y) while simultaneously accepting where we stand in relation to others (not possessing attributes that others have, but also having some elements to ourselves that others don’t), then we’re well on our way to a life where we maximize who we are instead of trying to morph ourselves into becoming someone else. If I wish to be something or someone I’m not, I first need to accept that I’m not that person or thing. Just as an orange tree is not and cannot be an apple tree, there are a good number of things that we are not and simply won’t be because of who we are. But that’s okay because an orange tree can grow oranges, something an apple tree cannot do. Not at all to say that one is limited exclusively to producing oranges (there are leaves, branches, shade, etc.), but playing to one’s strengths will always go a lot farther than trying to emulate everyone else.

As always, the above is a whole lot easier said than done, but just for a moment, consider all the time and energy we waste comparing ourselves to others and getting hung up wondering what they may or may not think of us. What if we could get our mind to stop spinning its wheels on what-ifs and instead optimize and operate for what we know to be true for ourselves? If we can come to terms with understanding and accepting who we are, and with it, knowing where we’re more capable than others, then we can forgo this whole game of constantly comparing ourselves to other people and instead just focus on doing us. Forget what everyone else is doing or what they look like - we need to understand who we are, accept the facts for what they are (not saying we accept everything and just say “that’s the way it is”, but instead accepting that we have some strengths and weaknesses that are innate), figure out where we’re going, and work on that. Forget about what everyone else may be doing – if we know who we are, and optimize for that, then we’re going to be uniquely positioned to be great at what we do, which is unlikely to overlap with the skills and strengths of everyone. But if we try to be like everyone else, but have skills that aren’t like everyone else, then we’re going to be less good at those things, and that’s not going to work out particularly well.

It can be hard to not get distracted by everyone else and to focus on ourselves, especially when we’re heavily worried about what others think about us. David Foster Wallace has a great quote in this vein, something along the lines of “We’d care a lot less about what others think of us if we realized how little they do.” Long story short, nobody is thinking about you half as much as you think they’re thinking about you; they’re all too busy thinking about themselves (which we’ll also talk more about later). I’m not, and will never be Michael Jordan – but Michael Jordan is not, and will never be me. I can do things he can’t, and he can do things I can’t. Rather than trying to be him, it’s a far better use of my time trying to optimize for who I am and what I’m capable of, which will produce far better results than trying to be him, or anyone else that isn’t me.

But who am I anyways? What should I be focusing on, and how do I get to figuring that out?

I’m no expert in the area of finding or defining oneself, but one simple way of getting started is to write down a list of (say, 10) things you’re passionate about, 10 (honest) dreams and aspirations for your life (e.g., not just owning a yacht and fucking off for the rest of your life), and then your ten best and worst life experiences so far. This sounds easy, but I promise it’s harder than it sounds. By diving into these three areas, you’ll be able to get a clearer picture of what you value—what’s important and meaningful to you right now (passions), what you want to get out of your life and where you’re going (dreams), and what has been historically impactful in the highest ways in your life so far (experiences). Obviously, there’s certainly more to work on than just the things on this list, but building it out gives you a solid starting point from which to prioritize and orchestrate when thinking about what doing/being you means and looks like. I’ve used this exercise at multiple points in life when I feel like I’m off course, and need to re-calibrate - helping figure out where I want to prioritize spending my time, and what I should be working on. There can be a lot of competing priorities for your finite amount of time, and sometimes it helps (a lot) to have a lens through which we can put things. By sitting down and writing the above out, it’s far easier to recognize patterns in terms of what’s brought the most joy, what is deeply important, and where I want to go. Armed with this refined sense of awareness, I’m better able to focus my efforts on what is in best alignment with my values and who I am.

Taking this a step further, it can also sometimes be an interesting exercise to disassociate ourselves from who we are physically, to try and reach a better understanding of who we are. It’s important to occasionally remember / recognize that who we truly are at the deepest level cannot be any of the things that we typically use to define ourselves from a physical standpoint. For instance, we cannot be our looks because looks can be altered. If our face is replaced by plastic surgery or melted off in a fire, are we not still us? You still exist. So, we cannot be our appearances, but what about our abilities? Say you’re a world-class skier, but then you lose both of your legs in an accident. Are you still you? You’re probably not a skier anymore, but you most certainly are still you. So, what are you? Ultimately, we cannot be our voice, our money, our body, or our bangin’ collection of antique stamps, automobiles, or whatever… those things can and will change, so they cannot be the grounds on which we stake our identity. Otherwise, we’re in for a crisis of identity anytime a hair is out of place, or we gain ten pounds. No, those things cannot be you, me, or us. So, in the face of all that is superficial, who or what are we?

I can’t speak to what or who anyone else is or should be, but I do recommend this as an occasional reminder and thought exercise. That is, the process of stripping away all the things you think define yourself and trying to get down to what’s left if all the external attributes are stripped away. In my case, it looks something like this: Who am I? Well, I’m a writer, a singer-songwriter, a guitarist, an expert in my area of cybersecurity, a resident of San Francisco, a person in decent physical shape, and maybe a handful of a few other things. But what if I gain weight, stop exercising, move to a new city, change the field I work in, never play a guitar, write, or sing a song again? If I do all those things, am I still me? Ostensibly, the answer is still yes. So, if none of those things is me, then who am I? It’s a messy and complicated question, and everyone’s truth will differ. Not the most fun exercise by any stretch, but a relevant point while we’re on the conversation of figuring out who we are (and conversely, who we are not), and in the end, perhaps it’s worth it if we can just maybe find a fraction of who we really are. The more we can understand who we are, and accept the reality of who we are, the better we can work to focus and optimize for who are, which becomes a self-reinforcing mechanism by which we can become more and more comfortable and secure in who we are and who we are not.

And that’s it for this round! Of course, if you want to skip ahead at any point, feel free to buy the full book on Amazon here. Thanks!