The average person does not try to be himself, but tries constantly to imitate. He does not try to bring out his own individuality, but tries to fashion his personality and personal life according to some exterior model that is supposed to be the standard in the world’s eye. The result is, he misplaces himself; because a person is always misplaced and misdirected when he tries to imitate the life of another; and no misplaced person can master his own fate. Such a mind goes willingly and unconsciously into all sorts of foreign conditions, and then wonders what he has done to bring about such a mixed and undesirable fate. When the individual tries to be himself, he will begin to act wholly in his own world, the only world where he can be his very best. And by trying to be himself, he begins to draw upon the unbounded possibilities that exist within himself, thus making himself a larger and a greater being constantly. The individual that tries to imitate persons or environments does not express himself; therefore, his own hidden powers continue to lie dormant. To express one’s own individuality, and to be oneself, the greatest essential is to live real life; the life that is felt in the depth of inner consciousness. To be yourself, be all that you are where you are, and greater spheres of action will constantly open before you. Be satisfied to be what you are, but do not be satisfied to be less than all that you are. When one begins to live in the depth of real life, and begins to draw upon his own inexhaustible self, he will find that he is so much that there is no end to the possibilities that exist in his own life and his own world.
~Christian D. Larson
Simply Etta 