Becoming

Becoming involves a transition from one level to another, but in this context, it’s a transition from a knowing to another knowing out of which we emerge becoming more of ourselves. This trend is noticeable as a child turns a teenage, a teenager a youth, a youth an adult. Each transition involves an experiential knowing. Enough of this transition thing, let’s get real.

In becoming the real or most true version of ourselves, we consciously or unconsciously sieve ourselves of other’s opinion, ideals and thoughts. The change might be negligible and might  as well be obvious. We tend to check and weigh the influence others exert on us.  As we grow older we note people’s influence in our way of life; how they affect the way we think, react to situations. For example, I’m a little bit adventurous in my personal style but I was used to wearing what my mom thought fitted me best but still in trying out my own sense of style I looked pretty silly many times with awkward moments of awesome awkwardness (that’s to say how awkward things got) but these silly and embarrassing moments got me acquainted with myself. Realizing myself as a whole entity with different needs and thoughts from friends or family members had me checking and weighing how much of me was me. How much of the weight do I account for?

Realizing who we are entails us verifying our so called truths, defining our truths, establishing our reality and debunking myths and illusions. It might be as silly as realizing that there’s no Santa Claus or as serious as finding if truly God exists. It’s a quest to understand who we are, what we believe and what we don’t.  For me it started with my parent’s odd story of purple lipsticks make girls wild.

Becoming requires us to admit how much of us is us, recognizing people’s influence on us and how much of that we’re retaining.

It’s quite difficult to break out of predefined expectations of who we are because in trying to break free from the confines, we appear fake to others though true to ourselves. We don’t find ourselves by looking into others; all we ever get to see is their ideals and insecurities silently projected into us. As hard as it can be, we deserve to see the world with our eyes, build our realities outside what we’ve been told. This is the origin of confidence. I went as far as buying all shades of lipsticks and to tell the truth, many of my escapades ended up with me learning rather than conforming and that’s the point.

Well meaning friends will try to stop us from trying things and I’m not including trying to know how it feels to drown or checking to see if fire burns, that is known already, it burns but things like knowing ourselves beyond the powder that fits our skin.

This process of finding or knowing is perceived as rebellious by most parents, friends and colleagues. It’s a period where we desire to learn on our own, see with our eyes, walk with our feet and can be frightening for parents and friends as they feel threatened or scared for us. Prior to this time, we were taught how to walk, how to see, how to breathe, how to feel, how to think but there comes a time when we of our own accord desire to walk , feel life, understand pain, give and let go of love by ourselves. This process is similar to a child learning how to walk on his own only that this is a mental leap, a mental crawl from being told what to do to realizing/understanding what to do.

This is how we become each time dusting off the world’s opinion. How we emerge from teenage crisis, mid life crisis, quarter life crisis and identity life crisis with a better understanding of who we are. In order to develop an independent mind with healthy ideas, we need to go through this, to realize our truths, build our faith from scratch, and understand our doubts and become ourselves.