To be, or not to be: that is the question:

In the play, Hamlet contemplates living and dying, bemoaning the pain and unfairness of life.  In storytelling we have to distill the essence of a situation in order to illustrate and share it with an audience. Here Shakespeare illustrates the angst of life summarising it elegantly as being alive or not:– to be or not to be. What does it mean to be alive?!

In real life, To be or not to be, might better applied to the subject of authenticity: being authentic, real, grounded, one's own person. Knowing who I am, what I believe, what sets me apart.

This is what 'Be Your Own Guru' is about.

Being authentic means knowing ourselves and, knowing ourselves requires work and the work requires a high level of self honesty. Trouble is we are very very good at believing our own b.s.

We often go about life for the longest time thinking, even believing that we know who we are and what makes us tick when in fact that ticking sound is a time bomb that will eventually go BANG!

Then, and unfortunately often only then, with the aide of forensic reconstruction we piece our life back together to see what went wrong. Sometimes its a big bang - much like "The Big Bang" and something comes into existence – we have an epiphany! Most times though its not so big and we find ways to blame another or the gods or circumstance and ignore an opportunity be become even more authentic. 

So here you are at the play that is your life contemplating this or that, bemoaning the pain and unfairness of life. In life just as the theatre we have to build upon the previous scenes and make them make sense, make meaning from what we've learnt and to go boldly forward as our own author.

To be or not to be your own guru – is the question.