‘I am free to be myself’
I had an interesting insight into a Primary 3 classroom recently.
My twins’ school was closed due to industrial action. Some of the learning was delivered online, so I had the joy of listening in to a Teams call between my 7 year olds and the rest of their class.
Instead of taking a register, the teacher asked the children to repeat the ‘daily affirmation’. This was new to me, so my ears pricked up. On this particular day, the affirmation was ‘I am free to be myself!’ I listened in as the teacher would say ‘Good morning Rosie’ or ‘Good morning Balazs’, and each child would repeat back: ‘I am free to be myself!’
The irony of thirty children repeating this mantra was lost to the rest of the audience.
My twins tell me that the daily affirmations rotate week to week, but that most riff off the same theme: things about ‘believing in yourself.’
The school, of course, celebrated International ‘Being You’ day (May 22nd, apparently). The campaign said: ‘Being ourselves is difficult because we try to be what others (society, family, friends, and more) expect us to be. But we invite everyone to simply be themselves beyond other people’s expectations.’
I think that summarises a story that our culture loves to tell: that success in the world means presenting your truest self, pushing off what society tells you to be, to be you. It’s almost like that’s the meaning of life. You are free to be yourself.
Modern philosopher Oprah Winfrey received a standing ovation at the Golden Globes when she coined this phrase: ‘speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.’
Like Oprah, Disney is also a cultural prophet. The idea that we need to look inside ourselves to find our real selves is woven into the fantastic songs of Frozen, Moana, Encanto.
Take the last one as an example – the plot is about the matriarch of a family whose expectations on her family are driving it to disaster. The message for us all to drink in is clear: be your true authentic self – don’t try to be someone that others are forcing you to be.
It can be applied to choosing a job, or sexual ethics, or fashion choices, or politics. And it is.
What’s wrong with just ‘being you’?
You might think this is trivial, but I think we see it playing out in real life, not just in Disney films. Being your true authentic self has become the definition of success. ‘You do you’ is the ethic of our age.
After a few minutes of listening to online class, it became evident that they were not free to be themselves. One child took over the chat bar, spelling out choice words; other children started having one-to-one conversations about what they were doing on the strike day; and others found the function where you can draw on the teacher’s presentation.
Now, we’re not all 7 year olds (you’re all behaving absolutely brilliantly reading this article) but I think it demonstrates something true, which is: there are significant problems with an ethic which essentially puts every individual’s desires at the centre.
A Netflix documentary called The Social Dilemma came out in 2020. It interviewed tech developers about the way that social media works, explaining that the algorithms are designed to play back your own preferences to you. They carefully monitor what you like, and they show us more of the same. One tech developer summed it up like this: ‘Each person has their own reality, with their own facts.’
Which sounds great – until you see how it plays out in real life. Another tech developer said, ‘if we don’t agree on what’s true, or that there is such a thing as truth… we’re toast.’
The people in the documentary were concerned that this will lead to social division, and even civil war, because the reality is we don’t live in a world of our own making, created from our own desires. We live in a world with certain boundaries, full of other people with their own desires.
That’s not the only problem either.
Another is that we spend a lot of time dealing with the consequences of desires gone wrong. In the words of international sage of our time, Taylor Swift: ‘It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.’
It’s the consistent testimony of people who have gotten what they wanted that it doesn’t really bring the satisfaction they thought it would.
Whether its the boyfriend you really thought you would love forever, but your love ran out… or something more trivial – the new clothes that you were sure would complete you, only to discover that actually they leave you unsatisfied…The reality is that following our desires rarely end well.
And finally, isn’t it exhausting? To have all the emphasis on you and what you do?
Maybe that’s why the generation brought up on this kind of thinking has the worst mental health, and a higher sense of despair, than previous generations.
And in turn, this is maybe why there is so much interest amongst young people in an alternative way of viewing ourselves – and our world. A story that can accommodate the idea that we all have value and worth and that our hopes and dreams are worth listening to; but also the parts of the story that show out that I’m not ok! That I’m part of the problem. That I need saved from myself sometimes, as much as from the world around me.
What do I follow if not my own heart?
When Jesus meets a young man whose life seemed to revolve around fulfilling the expectations of the world around him (at the time, these were: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal… all these I have kept since I was a boy’) Jesus doesn’t correct him by telling him to follow his heart. Instead, Jesus exposes that his heart is the problem – not the solution!
Jesus makes him realise that though he might have kept some of the commandments, there is one thing ‘[he] lack[s]’’ (Mark 10:17-27). And that one thing is the main thing. Jesus explains elsewhere that to whole point of the commandments the young man tries to follow his this: love God, and love others. Yet this man isn’t willing to give to those in need, so he’s missed the whole point of life: love. His heart is the problem! It’s like Tay Tay is singing his song – ‘it’s you. You’re the problem!’
Because the very centre of what is means to be a human in this world, according to Jesus, is loving God and loving each other.
Following our heart can drive other people away from us. But Jesus says the whole point of life is relationships. In particular, a relationship with God.
Our biggest problem is that we love other things more than Him. And this bigger story makes sense of the brokenness we see in ourselves, and the brokenness we see in the world around us: it’s because we’re trying to live in God’s world without God.
But there is a balm for that wound in the small sentence contained in the account of this meeting between a young man and Jesus: ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him.’
Jesus – who claims to have the authority of God – doesn’t spurn this person who has missed the point of the commandments, and of life… instead he loves him.
And the end of the encounter is eminently hopeful, because ultimately Jesus says salvation isn’t about us doing something – it’s about something God does. It’s a gift that he gives. Jesus’ love.
isn’t just a warm feeling towards us. Over the following pages in this account Mark records that Jesus loves us so much that he would die for us.
The greatest expression of human success that there has ever been is self-sacrificial love. Of course – if we look at bit harder – that’s what Disney is really telling us too.
One of the most beautiful moments in the film Frozen comes when Olaf the snowman – who so far has been in the film for comedy value – is with Anna, who is freezing to death, and needs to be kept warm beside a fire.
The same fire that keeps Anna warm, will of course melt and kill Olaf.
But he stays with Anna and says ‘some people are worth melting for.’
Self-sacrificing love, giving up your desires for the sake someone, else is surely a superior ethic than following your own heart.
That’s the kind of love that Jesus shows us. Though we’re the problem, his love extends to us.
What if, instead of our self-expression being the most important action, receiving the love of God was? What if I am most myself when I’m in relationship with the one who made me?
Our life isn’t a solo act where we’re the star. Life is a love story.
Our life isn’t about me stamping my desires on the world; in fact, following my own desires will ultimately lead to death.
But there is one who has died that death for me, who came not to bring me back into line, but to bring me back into relationship with God.
That’s the story that brings peace between people, in a world full of divisions.
That’s the story that brings me freedom from shame, in a life riddled with regrets. That’s the story that brings ultimate rest, in an exhausting follow-your-heart world.
And that’s the story I’ll be telling my 7 year olds every morning.
