I saw this quote on-line somewhere and decided to save it – “It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” – E.E. Cummings
It seems to pair nicely with one that I saved from the Jack’s Winning Words blog – “The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.” (John Green)
Too many young people try to chameleon their way through life, emulating the look and life of their favorite rock or movie star or maybe just someone else at their school or in their circle of friends. Some fear being unpopular of they allow others to see them as they really are or maybe they just don’t think who they really are is very interesting. It takes a while for the young, or any of us, to discover and understand themselves. It may take even longer to accept that understanding and have the courage to be who we really are.
Another quote that I’ve had hanging around for quite some time seems appropriate to this post – “If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?” Gloria Steinem
Obviously, the foot is who you really are and the shoe is who you have been trying to be (or to be like). You must have the courage to be who you really are and to learn to love being that person. I’ve posted here a few times on loving yourself, which means loving who you are. If you can’t love who you’ve become, work on becoming a better you, someone that you can love, not on trying to be like someone else.
So, stop being a chameleon, get real and summon up the courage to be who you really are. You’ll feel better about yourself and I think you’ll find that others feel better about you, too. Those “friends” who only liked the person that you were pretending to be weren’t really your friends at all. You will find new friends who are attracted to and like the person you really are, and they are your true friends.
Grow up and be you.
Posted by Norm Werner 
“cool”. In those ancient times, being cool was associated with the “beat generation” and role models in Hollywood included James Dean, Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood. Being cool meant combing a duck-tail into your hair and wearing jeans and black leather. It was all just fake and we weren’t really cool; but, most of us tried anyway.
be like him (or her), ask instead that God help you accept yourself as you are and for His help to make the best of that – “help me be the best me that I can be”. That is the premise of the self-help advice in the 1967 book, “I’m OK, You’re OK”, by Thomas Harris. The gist of that book and the training that was built upon it is understanding and accepting where you are coming from and being comfortable with that when you interact with others.
of videos from Sesame Street skits to pop songs that all have that same title and theme. The string that runs through them all is that you should be happy to be the person that you are and not try to be someone else.
hung up on how they look for dress or act in public and who they hang out with (or are not invited to hang out with). It’s hard to be happy with yourself if you don’t see yourself as being “cool” or being a member of the “in-crowd”. I posted here about that in a blog 
that time in our lives. Being in those groups is like being a fish that is swimming in sync with a large school of fish. One can look around and feel a sense of security and belonging that feels good. Just go with the flow and everything will be alright. You’ll be cool.
hout depending upon the approval of a group to bring happiness. They discover that they are “happy to be me”. We tend to identify people who are at that stage in life as being self-confident. People who have not yet arrived at that level of self-aware comfort with themselves are sometimes be said to be “phony’ or perhaps “fake”.
NormsMilfordBlog 