I wanted to be a writer. I fancied myself the kind of shy, introspective and observant person who ought to become a writer. I imagined that becoming a writer meant that people would appreciate my inner life, and all my slights would be vindicated. I figured that I might have the diligence and the attention to detail that I'd need as a writer.

I wrote stories in high school and passed them around. In college I suffered through lectures and discussions that perplexed me, because I thought they'd galvanize me into a reader, into an appreciator. After college, I spent whole weekends slaving over a single page, trying to commit thoughts to word and to spin out characters and plots. I tried my hand at playwriting, trying to break soliloquys apart into dialogue, and reveal characters just with speech. I tweaked fonts and margins endlessly, and never had more than a few pages.

I knew it the whole time, but it was years and years before I accepted the fact: I was not going to be a writer. I would never write a novel or a play. My slavitude was barren, when other areas of life bore fruit much more easily. It was hard to accept—after all, if I never wrote, I'd be like a man who lived in a box, no one celebrating his perspective. The unexamined life is not worth living!

Since then I discovered blogging. Blogging occupies a new niche, between writing Christmas cards once a year and pumping out a novel on the regular. Having discovered blogging, it's easy for me to let go of that notion, which I clung to madly, of Being a Writer. It's not the same: I'm not a writer, not even close. My high school English teacher wouldn't accept this as her success. But a writer is not what I am; I'm something else, something I'm still figuring out. Blogging uses my writer's elbow, and in a better way, too. It allows me to close off that particular existential terror, the one that kept me awake taunting, "You're no writer!"

Your old self can hold you back, in other words. You can be so frustrated with not getting what you expected, that you ignore what you are getting and what you can get; you cease letting yourself change & grow.

So for my reference and yours, here are a few ideas about how to be yourself, and on dethroning your Old Self.

Find smaller ways of doing what you want. I'll never write a novel, but I can blog; I can write a few hundred words here every once in a while. This allowed me to try writing a bit more than I was doing, and it turns out to be just the right size for me. Rather than collapsing hopeless under the weight of a serious Narrative, I can write out a thought or two when I have one, and get quick feedback from readers. Instead of staring at a blank page feeling anxious, I just write what I can. Then go for a bike ride or see a movie. Or make guacamole.

Try new things. Our tastes get formed by our families, largely, and yet families can impose restrictions on us that we wouldn't rather live by. My parents are quiet and tend not to throw or go to parties. I had a lot of letting go to do before I let myself go out and enjoy a good party, let alone throw one myself. This can work in different ways. If you're a teetotaller, drinking is something new; if you drink a lot, sobriety can be something new. If you're a coward, try being brave. If you're brave, try being a coward. But, crucially, pay attention to how it makes you feel, not for "good" or "bad" but for its particular quality. Your self-esteem depends on being a writer? Ignore writing for a while. Try sailing. Imprint the feeling.

Notice your happiness. What matters, ultimately, and what no one can gift you with or quite take away, is being happy, and feeling pleasure in your days. If you keep your room too messy or too clean, or drink the wrong kind of juice, or play soccer with the guys on the block even though you don't like soccer, or if you spend your life ministering to the sick when you'd rather be doing science experiments, you have no one else to blame. Sometimes happiness comes as an immediate pleasure; other times it doesn't smell like happiness at first. Good exercise can be painful, but when you get to the top of the hill you might feel great. It's easy to blow past it, to rush back down the hill, get back into bed and consider that "done." Even if you've been to that hill before: Linger. Also, don't be swayed by the way others feel around you. What makes you happy is personal; you can't copy it.

Resist temptation. Noticing happiness shouldn't mean getting dependent on a crutch. Lots of things make us happy in the short term and miserable in the long term. Be aware of the long-term effects, and be aware that most things do have long term effects. Be conscious of when something really fun gets in the way of something that could make you happy on the slow burn. If you really are going to be a writer, don't let your friends tempt you out to the clubs every day. When you're ready to try something, a new direction in life, commit to it—don't let pettier pleasures keep you from discovering a new one. If Yoga class is difficult, and if it seems easier to lay about than to go back to it, steel yourself against that sloth, and remember that happiness comes mostly from getting out of bed.

See also.