The world needs you
No one can compete with you at being you
Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
- Lao Tzu
Most people don’t embrace their uniqueness. They tell themselves they are just easygoing: professional at work, agreeable with friends, silent around family. But it’s not flexibility, it’s fear. Consciously or not, running away from fear is cowardice. They don’t even notice when it starts. A little silence here, a fake laugh there. With every compromise, they lose a part of themselves. Soon enough, they don’t stand for anything. A spiritual black hole. And that’s the trap to avoid.
You’re not meant to be a shape that fits someone else’s mold. You are the result of a one-in-a-trillion combination of events. Your value is the sum of it all: your proudest moments, your instincts, your pain, your weirdness, your spirit. Real freedom is living congruently with these parts of you: thinking, feeling, and acting in alignment. If you are willing to throw that away, you betray the only thing you ever truly own, yourself. And for what? The approval of people whose principles you don’t even share!
But authenticity doesn’t come for free. It means telling your friend they’re betraying themselves for not chasing their dreams and being okay with them getting upset. It means quitting the job to pursue your passion. It means risking embarrassment asking for help. Living in alignment is expensive but avoiding it costs even more. What you feel internally has to match how you act outwardly. You can bury that incongruence for a while, but it will always surface, and usually in ways you’ll regret.
Living authentically begins with knowing, defining, and holding yourself accountable to what you stand for. Your values, your voice, your principles. It ends with sharing those core parts of yourself freely, even when it is costly. It will feel scary to face that cost, and that’s when you know you are headed the right direction. Use fear as your compass.
When you live authentically, your magic returns. All the splintered energy wasted on pretending gets reclaimed. No hiding. No personas to manage. Play, joy, presence all return naturally to you. Just you being you. It becomes intoxicating to be alive. Outwardly, people will gravitate towards you when you have a clear line around who you are. Ironically, the best way to build connection is by being disagreeable for things you stand for. The people who stay are exactly the people you need.
Beyond your inner peace, it is about what you owe the world. Without you, the person you could’ve inspired stays stuck. The idea that could’ve changed everything dies in your drafts. When you hide, you deprive others of what only you could offer. No one can compete with you at being you. Hiding is a dereliction of duty.
Life will offer you immediate comfort in exchange for your soul. Most take the deal, not realizing they will pay either way: discomfort now or discomfort later. That choice determines not only the quality of your own life, but the lives of those around you. It determines whether your gift ever reaches the world.
The world doesn’t need more copies. It needs you.