What I think it Means / Takes to be "200% Yourself"

I recently showed a poster for a new shoe created by one of my favorite artists, Tom Sachs, to Samuel G. Davey and after seeing and reading it he said, “Wow, it’s incredible that he gets away with just being 200% himself.”

Though it may not mean anything concrete to be “200% yourself”, it certainly seems, to me, like an ideal worth aspiring to; like something I might like to have others say about me, and more importantly, it is something something I’d like to feel is true about myself - whatever it actually means.

I began to ask myself “Damn, where am I falling short and not being 200% myself?”

And then, “What would it mean and what would it take for me to be ‘200% myself’?”

The first step seemed pretty obvious: You’ve gotta be 100% yourself before you can get to 200%, and to get to 100% you’d have to start by spending your time and energy doing and creating whatever you want and not what you think other people want you to.

Being 100% yourself would mean pursuing your own genuine interests and curiosities, not just things that are popular or will help you make money and garner status, and it would mean refusing to waver on this no matter what opportunities, distractions, or obstacles you come across along the way.

What then, would it take to go to the next level and reach 200%?

After some thinking, I feel like there are 2 main things you need to do:

1) You have to do really hard work.

2) You have to create things that inspire, empower and move others to emulate and adopt the best parts of you and your work, to do the hard work to make them their own, and to become more themselves as a result.

When I think of the people who’ve inspired me most (like Tom Sachs for example) - through their creativity, work ethic, and absolute refusal of the social pressures to shrink and conform - to become the person I am today, they’ve all done these 2 things.

As I began to write a bit more on each of these topics, I realized I had far too much to say for one little blog post, so I’m going to split these thoughts up into:

• 1 x post on the necessity of “hard work” in self-realization / self-actualization.
• And 1 x post on the importance and value of creating things that inspire and empower others to do the hard work of becoming and expanding themselves.

I would like to point out that Sam said Sachs, “gets away with” being 200% himself. This implies that not only is he totally okay exploring his own interests, curiosities, and weirdness, but he’s also been brave / crazy enough to share them, to put them out into the world to be seen and judged, and has ultimately been successful in having his absurdities accepted and deemed valuable by the public and by corporations like Nike and myriad others.

I feel it's important to say that I definitely don’t feel like it has to be (and, for most, probably shouldn’t be) the goal to make money from your purest forms of self-expression - but, it’s kinda cool that it’s possible?

For me, this is where things get a little extra confusing because I really do admire, and sometimes envy, folks who can separate their work and play totally, but I tend to feel a desire for the balance described by Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard in his book Let My People Go Surfing:

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”

To each their own, but that just sounds right, to me.

Stay tuned for post #2 on the necessity and value of hard work in self-actualization, coming soon.