Yesterday’s blog post reminded me of a quote I have loved since reading Hamlet as a teenager.  As Polonius bids farewell to his son, Laertes, he gives this advice:

“This above all – to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

I better understand this advice since I now know what it means to be the “real me.”  “To thine own self be true”, in my case, means not denying emotions and feelings.  It means processing and feeling those emotions so situations are handled truly and with thought instead of with reactions resulting from unprocessed emotions that are often disguised.  In so doing, I’m not only being true to myself but to others because the emotions driving my actions are authentic and not false, thus addressing the last line of the quote.

Wow – that Shakespeare guy was pretty brilliant  🙂