To Be or Not To Be

I still remember the day I realized I was not living my own life.

I was shocked.

Why?

Because I prided myself on living my own life.
I had been intentionally deviating from what my friends were doing.
I thought I was living my own life.

But no.
It turns out I’d been conforming to nonconformity.
I’d been playing the role of a “rebel.”

Much of our lives are spent playing roles: a good son, a caring parent, a resilient entrepreneur, a modernist painter, a stoic physician, …

As we do, we mistake pretending for being ourselves.
Actually. No.
We mistake pretending for being.

Hamlet once said “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
Let us ask this question.
Lest we die having never lived.

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