Well, the title might sound cheesy or corny, but do hear me out.

I must say Chris Evans became one of my favorite actors because of the Captain America movies. I love superhero movies plus he was undoubtedly good looking in them. However, I can’t say that his character had an impact on me. He was supposed to be a hero after all.

Well, I got to see his movie What’s Your Number? today, and his character there is the one I fell in love with.

In the movie, he stars opposite Anna Farris who plays Ally Darling, a single lady who can’t seem to find a serious relationship and yet has had more boyfriends than the average American woman has. Colin Shea (played by Evans) is her next-door neighbor who also sleeps with a different woman every night.

I know they seem far from your ideal man or woman (if such even exist), but what made me fall in love with Colin is how he loves Ally for all that she Is –quirks, weirdness, mistakes, and all.

We often try to find the “ideal” person to have a relationship with – be it the friendly or romantic type. In the process, we also try to be the “ideal” person based on what we think others expect of us. However, in our quest to become so, we often lose ourselves. We become a different person from who we truly are.

We always try to blend in and to conform to what people consider “standard” or “normal.” However, there is such a liberating feeling when you can just be yourself–when you don’t have to worry about what the other person thinks of you.

We meet some people with whom everything we say or do seems to be taken the wrong way. And then we meet those who totally get us—or who at least appreciate us for being who we are. How relieving it is when you don’t have to feel like walking on egg shells all the time.

Captain America is perfect. He’s strong, good looking, and has super powers, but he’s not real. On the other hand, Colin Shea is imperfect. He also dresses ordinarily, lives in an ordinary apartment, and has an ordinary job. And yet, he loves Ally for who and what she is. He doesn’t mind her clumsiness, her craziness, and her weirdness. In fact, they are part of what he loves about her. Colin is more like the people we’ll probably meet.

We often look for the superhero –the perfect person; the ideal one. But reality is that superheroes exist only in comic books and the movies. People like Colin Shea and Ally Darling are the realistic ones. They’re flawed, yet they have some goodness in them, too. They’re like us. We’re all flawed and broken, yet there’s still something beautiful in us. Trying to be a superhero or the “ideal” person will only tire and frustrate us.

Instead of superheroes, I think that the people we should look for and allow into our lives are the people who can accept and love us for who and what we are and who we can accept and love for who and what they are in return.

Nobody’s perfect and neither are we, but if we can find people who can accept and love us for who we are –without feeling the need to change us—then they are the people who are perfect for us.

I know it’s scary to be ourselves. We always compare ourselves to others, and we always worry about what they think.

It takes a lot of “practice” and a change in mindset, but here are some tips on how you can be yourself more:

Tip #1. Accept yourself

Something I learned from my prayer community leaders is that even if the whole world accepts you, if you don’t accept yourself, then you would still be miserable. But if you accept yourself, it doesn’t matter if the whole world doesn’t accept you, you’d still be comfortable in your own skin. You’d still be happy with who you are.

Learn to embrace your uniqueness even if it means that other people think you’re weird, strange, unconventional, or what not. All of these things are what make you special.

I especially admire people like Lady Gaga and Sia. People thought they were weird and strange when they first became celebrities, but they obviously accepted themselves for who they were. They did not feel the need to change their ways.

The most amazing thing is by continuing to be their strange and weird selves, they eventually gained the respect and admiration of many people. They completely accepted that they were different from other people, and it was their difference and uniqueness that made them stand out and succeed.

In life, you have to stand out to move ahead. Blending in may be safe but won’t really get you that far. You become just one of the crowd, and as stated by Oleg Vishepolsky, CTO of Daily Mail Online, “The road most traveled is the road of mediocrity.”

It’s true that the way you see yourself reflects how others see you. As such, the more you accept yourself, then the more others will accept you. I also realized that the more uncomfortable you are with yourself, the more uncomfortable others are around you, too.

Tip #2. Stop seeking people’s approval

I live by the adage that you can never please everyone. No matter what you do, there will always be someone who will approve of it and someone who will criticize it. As such, my rule of thumb is that, as long no one gets harmed by your actions, then you should do what you think is right and what makes you happy.

Constantly seeking other people’s approval will leave you feeling frustrated and miserable. You’ll either feel bad from being criticized so much or you’ll be forced to conform to them and feel unhappy about it. Either way, it’s a no-win situation for you.

On the other hand, if you do things your way, you’re at least making one person happy –you! And for sure, you’ll meet other people who will understand and support you.

Tip #3. Hang out with people who appreciate and accept you

Being around people who constantly criticize you will break your spirit no matter how much self-confidence and self-esteem you have. If you already have negative self-talk going on in your head, then hearing the same from others will only affirm those negative things you think of yourself.

I used to feel so misunderstood. I felt there was something wrong with me because the people around me mocked me—the way I think, the way I do things. I was starting to think there was something wrong with me. ..well, until I met people who totally got me.

I met some people with whom I didn’t have to explain myself but who immediately understood me. With them, I didn’t even have to finish what I was saying for them to understand me, and that made me feel so liberated! It made me realize that there was nothing wrong with me after all. Well, there’s nothing wrong either with the people who misunderstood me. They were simply different from me, and that’s not a bad thing. I just have to accept that we see things differently. I just need to respect that and not force them to see things my way.

With that insight, I realized that it’s just a matter of finding the “right crowd” and spending more time with them. We are still social beings and we still have the need to belong. By hanging out with people who think like us, we will feel more understood, and we will also feel that we belong. It then becomes easier for us to be ourselves. Read more about the 20 Things You Should Not Put Up With.

Tip #4. Be forgiving of yourself.

You can’t be everything that you want to be no matter how hard you try. You will sometimes come up short of your and other people’s expectations. You will make mistakes. By accepting that there’s a limitation to what you can do, it becomes easier to be yourself. By forgiving yourself for the mistakes you make, you become more at ease in being yourself. You’ll know that even if you make mistakes, they don’t really make you less of a person because you’re just human. They’re part of life. You just need to learn from them and move on. red more on how to forgive yourself.

Tip #5. Laugh at yourself

Laughing at your mistakes can make it easier to relax and just be yourself. You don’t have to pretend to know everything nor do you have to pretend that you can do everything. Learn to laugh at yourself whenever you attempt to do something new and fail at it or whenever you are unaware of something that seems common knowledge to everyone. This will make an embarrassing situation un-embarrassing and seeing that you’re laughing at yourself will keep other people from feeling uncomfortable or awkward with your boo-boo. Moreover, the mean-spirited people will no longer feel the need to criticize you because you’ve already acknowledged your mistake and even made fun of it. What more can they say?

Tip #6. Stop comparing yourself to others

Stop focusing on how others do things much better than you do or how they look much better than you. Be content with who you are and focus on your strengths and positive traits instead. There’s a saying that there is always someone greater and lesser than you. Even as you’re wishing that you had what someone else had, another person is surely wishing that they had what you have. In the end, we are all equals. So if others think that you’re being weird or crazy, don’t stop being your weird or crazy self. There’s surely someone thinking that they wish they can be as carefree as you!

Conclusion

Being yourself and being with people who are comfortable with themselves are among the greatest feelings in the world. I don’t like the feeling of being boxed and being forced to conform. By being yourself and by being with people who are themselves, you can more freely live out your life to the fullest and be able to fearlessly explore everything that it has to offer!

Who makes you feel great for being you?

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