'All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His act being seven ages.'
---Excerpt from Shakespeare's 'As You Like It.'

If I were to ask you right now, at this very minute, if you were being yourself, what would your answer be?
A definite, certain 'yes'. A whispered 'no'. Or a hesitant, soft 'I'm not sure'?

Too many people are not true to themselves, in today's world. Too many people try to be someone else, ty to be something else; a mould they cannot fit into. I may not know very much about the business world, but I know for sure that in schools, many students try to be someone else, someone they are not.

It is quite easy to spot, but at the same time, I never know whether to feel sorry for the person in question, or to tell said person to sod off and find his or her own personality, to put it rather bluntly. I will never understand why people cannot just be their own person, why they have to perpetually model themselves, their behaviour, and even their way of life around someone else's, when it just does not fit. Of course, this is probably something we all do, at one point or another in our teenage lives; after all, we all have idols, and it is perfectly normal to want to emulate your chosen idol as much as you possibly can. That's fine; what gets on my nerves is how some people perpetually, yes, perpetually model their behaviour after someone or another, whether the chosen target is a peer or not, it is still irritating. But at the same time, it is also rather sad.

I pity these people, because they are like lost souls. It looks as if they have no real identity, and their personality is made up of bits and pieces of other characters. Everything they base themselves on is take from somewhere else, someone else, and is not their own. Occasionally, this entire thing reminds me of those online role-playing games, where players choose the various character traits they want in their character. I know many famous people have said that the entire world is just a stage, and life is just a game, but must we adhere to those sayings and quotes? Yes, the world is a stage, and life probably is a game, but that does not mean the rest of us have to follow suit and play it.

I suppose you could argue back and tell me that hey, living without acting is damn near impossible nowdays, and hey, don't I act too? Well, let me tell you, acting differently in certain situations is very different from changing your personality like you change an outfit. Acting differently is merely modifying your behaviour to suit the situation, not changing your whole personality to fit in. For example, I am, admittedly, quite an introvert who rather prefers books and a quiet evening to dinner parties and gatherings. But if I were to attend a dinner party, I would not hide in the toilet and read, or stare resolutely out the window and refuse to talk to the other guests because that would be rude. Instead, I would make small talk with some of the guests and join in some of their discussions, because in that particular situation, that would be the right thing to do. But I would not discard my own personality entirely, and pretend to be outgoing and a socialite because that would be a lie, not to mention quite tiring to keep up.

See, there is a difference to throwing your entire personality out the window and modifying it a little to fit the situation.

I really do not understand why some people perpetually cannot be their own person, and must always trail after someone else. Sure, maybe you make more friends that way, or maybe you will become the most popular student that way, but what's the point? Sooner or later, it will get tiring, and you will stare in the mirror one day and wonder what you have become. Or you might find that you 'pretended' too well, and have actually turned into the very person you were pretending to be! That is what actor Nicholas Cage does sometimes. After staying in-character for a film for so long, sometimes, he unconciously continues acting in that manner in real life.

Now, wouldn't it be so much better to just be yourself? After all, the world is only more interesting because of all the different people and characters that inhabit it; everything would become far too boring and predictable if everyone acted like someone else.

At the end of the day, all that really matters is whether you are being true to yourself, because there is already so much falsehood in this world, is there any point in adding to it?

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