This above all: to thine own self be true.
For it must follow as dost the night the day, that canst not then be false to any man.
The quote is from Shakespeare (Hamlet) who was himself inspired by Socrates, but my reason for including it here is that the first part of it was my Dad's ultimate personal maxim. I remember him saying it often when I was young but as with so many "grown-up" epithets, I didn't have a clue what he meant by it.
I mean, how hard could it be to be true to yourself right? You just have to be, well, you. Of course as anyone over the age of about eight knows (although they might not be conscious of it), all sorts of peer pressure, social pressure, advertising, insecurity, parental expectation, financial pressure and the general need to please other people can lead you to behave in anything other than the way you really-deep-down want to.
Even with the perspective of years and a better idea of what it really means, I'm not sure I achieve it anywhere near as often as I should.
But the one thing I have realised, although it's taken me long enough, is that not being true to yourself hurts more people than just you. It hurts you because you're denying your essential self. But ironically it also hurts the people you're probably trying to avoid hurting. By giving them false expectations of who you are, you're building up problems for the future. They will continue to expect you to be who you're pretending to be and may put even greater demands on you to behave like they want you to behave, at the expense of how you would rather be. This is a circle of the most vicious kind. You may wake up one day, long in the future, and not recognise yourself.
So, once more with feeling: This above all: to thine own self be true. Don't compromise who you are for the sake of who you think other people want you to be.
This section of the site is devoted to personal things about me. With that insight, you'll be able to tell (if you ever meet me) whether or not I'm being "true to myself." On the Early Years page, I describe where I grew up and a few things that happened to me at school.
University (you will be amazed to hear) is a brief sojourn through my memories of my (brief!) time at UMIST. The Family page describes the arc my family life has travelled. It's a lot different now than it was when it started, so there's some history there, as well as how it is now.
Although I had quite an early exposure to Spiritualism, my beliefs were "shelved" for much of my early adult years. Events in 1993 changed that forever, and so I have devoted an entire page to the story.
The final two pages in this section describe my Leisure activities (it's a small page!) and, inspired by Diane's famous Travelogues, I thought I'd follow in her formidable footsteps and try to write up some of the fabulous holidays I've had over the years.