Humor me for a moment, and reflect on the people that stand out to you as you experience the sensory overload of life. Most of us will feel drawn to the girl who posts a video with a rant about something funny that happened, or the little child who screams something embarrassing to the surrounding adults and doesn’t know why the whole room fills with laughter, or the man singing his heart out in the street.
We live in a time when keeping your head down and trying to be unnoticed as possible is a totally legitimate social norm. So when someone doesn’t do that, when they express themselves openly and without fear, you can almost always find people gawking around them. The beauty is that those onlookers feel something. They feel excitement, maybe sadness, or perhaps embarrassment for the person whose joke in their stand-up comedy act just fell flat. Maybe they are overwhelmed with the beauty of the poem they just heard and they are brought to tears.
We feel so much based on the self-expression of other people, which begs the question, what do we feel about our own self-expression?
Even thinking about being noticed brings about terrible anxiety for some people. I know, because I used to be one of them. But over time, I realized that I didn’t like that constant nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to be able to laugh and keep walking if I tripped in the middle of the street, not start sweating as my face flushed red and I scurried away. I wanted to be someone that inspired the people around me, and how could I do that if I was so scared of being seen?
Over the years, I saw more and more people expressing themselves - singing, painting, modeling, dressing in a certain style, writing, debating - and I admired their confidence. And over more time, I realized that even the most confident people have their insecurities. They simply are aware enough of them to stop letting those insecurities dominate their lives.
Everybody loves to watch someone be genuine, and real - whether it’s in person or behind a computer screen. It’s incredible to watch how many people rise to some odd level of fame just through sharing themselves and their lives on social media. And I think it’s amazing. Most of the “insta-famous,” etc. type of characters are only so because of their physical beauty or wealth, but some do simply share laughter and new perspective across the airwaves.
I would like to encourage everyone to express themselves. Next time you see someone else doing it, think, “Am I really any different from them? Look at how people are drawn to them, just because they’re genuine - who says I can’t do that?”
The world is filled with too many lonely people. And I’m afraid we’ve done it to ourselves. Each of us is such a gem with SO much potential but we need energy and support to grow! I encourage everyone out there to spend a little more conscious time connecting with their community and stepping out of their comfort zone. You’d be amazed how much bigger that “zone” gets once you begin to color outside the lines... :)
