Importance of Being Yourself: By Rachel Classen

IMPORTANCE OF BEING YOURSELF!
Written by: Rachel Classen

      When I was given the theme of this month’s issue, Struggles of Latinas, a flood of topics came to me, because, let’s face it girls, we have no shortage of struggles in our lives.  I’m a bi-racial Latina, so I thought I’d write about never feeling Hispanic enough, or never feeling white enough.  Or maybe I’d write about how our heritage slips further and further away as our generations progress.  These, of course, are all too real realities that shouldn’t be brushed aside as pertinent topics of discussion. However, I finally decided on my topic—the importance of being yourself!  As I began to write my article, I found myself coming back to heritage and the expectations people have of me based on who people think I am, or who they think I should be.

With this in mind, a few days before the due date of the article, my co-worker Marisa Jimenez (also a contributor to the magazine) and I took a well-needed break from the office.  I thought we were going outside to do our usual routine: a catnap under the California sun on the padded bench around our courtyard’s fountain, sans water this day, and back to work.  Marisa pulled out a notebook and announced she was going to proofread her article.  “Well, I want to do mine too, you should have told me and I would have brought it,” I responded with childlike disappointment.  So, Marisa handed me a piece of paper and after much purse digging, she produced a pen.  Now, I just needed something firm to write on.  When I glanced around, on an adjacent café table I spotted a popular LA magazine that is housed in the bottom two floors of our building.  I grabbed it and flipped through it as we both agreed it was unbelievable the lack of substance that was in the magazine.  It featured pages and pages of scantily clad women at “this” private party and “that” club opening.  The magazine glorifies LA’s nightlife and the idea that less clothes and a teeny body is the epitome of sexy.

In my disgust and disdain for these glossy pages, I realized that the larger issue at hand was the struggle to find, and then keep my own identity amidst the hype of the pages, the reality shows, and the gossip magazines layered on top of the day to day struggles of pleasing everyone in my life. I found myself proving my Hispanic roots to some, and making sure to be articulate enough for others.  Simply, I felt like I had to change to fit in.

Too often I tried to please other people. I made them happy at the cost of my own happiness.  I became adept at adapting to different situations. I tried to be the best--the perfectionist at everything I did.  I got the good grades, pleasing my parents and professors. I was still a huge partier, winning the respect of my peers.  I vowed to be different than other girls, to be that “perfect” girlfriend who didn’t stress about the “where are you’s” and “who is that’s.”  Only recently did I realize that by doing this, I was really only floating, or bouncing rather, on other people’s expectations of myself.  The only expectation I held for myself was that I met everyone else’s expectations.  It is impossible and impractical to be perfect, and after twenty-four years of attempting this, I hit an all-time low.

When I fell, I had no safety net.   I never developed a core for myself, no foundation for who I really was and what I wanted, so when I fell, I fell inward, with nothing to catch me.  I had to re-examine everything in my life.  I found the source of this state was an accumulation of all the smaller things in my life.  To be able to make myself happy, I had to step out of my routine and consciously ask myself, “Am I wearing this because it expresses how I fell, or because I think other people will like it?”  “Am I agreeing to see this movie because I thought I’d like it, or because I knew my boyfriend would?”  These may seem like mundane issues, but when there was no give-and-take, when these incidents of only giving piled up, there existed no balance in my life.  I was left unhappy without knowing why.  This was my nature for so long; I didn’t even realize what was happening.

But once I did realize that I wouldn’t continue to live for other people, I couldn’t keep going without compromise, I learned to accept myself, the good, bad, and ugly.  Now, I won’t bend or try to blend when I know in my heart that is not true to me.  I’ll apologize when I’ve wronged, and always strive to make the ugly a little less so.  I’ll try to eat right and exercise, so that I feel healthy, not so I look skinny.  Of course I still struggle with the impulse to keep turning those glossy pages and with the voice that puts that little dress on her mental list of things she wants to get, as soon as she loses five pounds, but at this point in my life, I’m just glad to have perspective.  I’m happy to be able to assess a situation and know where my priorities and values lie.  But most importantly, I’m thankful that I am able to make myself happy.  I no longer expect other people to do for me what I couldn’t, no more unrealistic expectations.  If my boyfriend doesn’t compliment me when I wear that new dress, or if my dad forgets to call when he says he will, it’s not a show stopper, because I know I look good and I know I’m worthy without the validation of another soul in the world.  And quite frankly, you should feel that way too.  CHICAS, ALWAYS BE TRUE TO YOURSELF!