keep yourself to yourself

i used to think vulnerability was a shortcut to connection. that the more you shared, the more people would understand you, respect you, maybe even love you. and so i gave people access—sometimes too much, too soon. i let people in under the assumption that closeness meant safety. but the thing about handing people the full, unfiltered version of yourself is that not everyone knows how to handle it with care. there’s a fine line between being open and being an open target. the more people think they know you, the more they think they can define you. and once you become defined in their eyes, you stop being a person with depth and contradictions and start being a fixed idea. the friend who “always overthinks.” the coworker who’s “too ambitious.” the girl who “never shuts up about her dreams.” labels, once assigned, are nearly impossible to shake. and suddenly, you’re stuck living in other people’s narratives about you, whether you like them or not.

people love to say, “just be yourself!” but they never mention that the more people know about who you are, the more opinions they’ll have about what you should be. let them in too much, and you’ll spend half your life defending your choices to people who never deserved a say in them to begin with. and the worst part? once people feel like they get you, they stop listening. your struggles become predictable. your emotions, old news. nothing you say surprises them anymore. and suddenly, your most intimate thoughts are just background noise in someone else’s life. but here’s the thing: people don’t actually want to know you. they want to figure you out. they want to fit you into a neat little box so they can make sense of you. they want to dissect your thoughts, analyze your choices, and weigh in on your decisions like your life is some kind of group project. and once they think they have you all figured out, they stop seeing you as a person and start seeing you as a puzzle they’ve already solved.

i used to overshare under the illusion that it would make people feel closer to me. but more often than not, it did the opposite. people weren’t interested in understanding me—they were interested in knowing just enough to form an opinion. they weren’t listening to connect; they were listening to categorize. and once i realized that, i stopped offering so much of myself on a silver platter. keeping to yourself doesn’t mean shutting people out completely. it doesn’t mean being cold, or distant, or unwilling to connect. it just means recognizing that not everyone deserves front-row seats to your life. some people are just there to observe from the balcony. some don’t even get into the theater. and that’s okay.

there’s a certain power in being unreadable. in letting people wonder. in keeping certain things for yourself. we live in a world that glorifies oversharing, that encourages you to spill every thought and feeling in the name of authenticity. but true authenticity isn’t about exposing yourself to anyone who will listen. it’s about knowing when to speak and when to stay silent. when to open up and when to hold back. people will always be more interested in the parts of you that they don’t have access to. mystery is magnetic. and the less you reveal, the less people can control. because the truth is, the more people know about you, the more they feel entitled to an opinion. the more they assume they understand your choices, your struggles, your journey. and the more they’ll try to insert themselves where they don’t belong. so let them wonder. let them make assumptions. let them fill in the blanks however they want. the ones who truly know you will never need the full story spelled out for them. and the ones who don’t? they were never meant to know in the first place.

the most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. and that relationship isn’t built in the noise of social validation or the performance of oversharing—it’s built in privacy, in stillness, in the quiet moments that belong only to you. when you stop handing people the script to your life, you finally get to write it on your own terms. there’s a reason the most powerful people in the world are often the most enigmatic. the more access people have to you, the less they respect your boundaries. mystery breeds influence. when you don’t give people all the pieces, they can’t reduce you to something simple. and complexity makes people think twice before they assume they know what you’re about. but beyond strategy and perception, keeping yourself to yourself is about something much deeper—self-respect. when you guard your inner world, you’re making a statement: my thoughts, my emotions, my ambitions are mine first. they are not for public consumption. they are not up for debate. they are not currency to trade for temporary connection.

our culture rewards visibility, as if exposure itself is the path to success. but real power comes not from being seen, but from being known by the right people, in the right way. and sometimes, the right people aren’t the ones who hear every detail of your life, but the ones who respect that they don’t need to. privacy is not secrecy. it’s not fear. it’s not isolation. it’s intention. it’s choosing to share yourself in a way that aligns with your values, rather than out of obligation or habit. it’s understanding that your life is not an open book—it’s a rare manuscript, and not everyone deserves a copy.

so, let people wonder. let them assume, let them speculate, let them create stories about you in their heads. their version of you is their business, not yours. the less you explain, the more power you hold. and in a world where everyone is desperate to be understood, there’s something quietly rebellious about choosing instead to be unreadable.