Do I have to change my personality to become holy?

When we look at the lives of the saints of North America, one thing that stands out is that they all had different personalities. They were all very distinctly different people. I think it's one of the hardest things for people to understand when they come to the Orthodox Church: they think of the saints like they think of Eastern gurus. Like all the saints were just mellow, soft-spoken, you know what I mean? Like they are all frail, timid. Oh, I'm a saint, I'm a saint, I'm holy. You know, like if somebody becomes Orthodox, after a little bit they're like, oh, forgive me, forgive me, oh, thank God, thank God. It's like, oh, they've learned all the saint genuflections. They're right there, they've got it. Maybe even grow a ponytail out, get really wild, don't cut the beard, don't cut the beard. Now you're, oh my goodness, you're so illumined. When you look at the saints and you look at their personalities and the ways that they interacted with people, they were very different people. Very different people. Some of them were more strict, like St. John Maximovitch was known for his strictness. You know, there's a story where a woman came up to kiss the cross and was wearing lipstick, and he was like, you shouldn't wear lipstick, you're not allowed to kiss the cross. People hear that today and they're like, oh my goodness, how could he be so mean to her? He wasn't being mean, he was just being direct and simple. You can't kiss the cross, you're going to leave lipstick on the cross, you can't kiss the icons in the church. That's it. And you know what's interesting? Because of his deep humility and who he was as a person, she basically said, it won't happen again. That was it. But we see in his personality a certain rigor, a certain strictness, even in his asceticism, and the fact that he essentially never slept. You know, people don't realize this, but he would stay up all night in prayer, and if he ever dozed off it was in a chair sitting upright. He was very strict about people's name days. So if it was somebody's name day, he would write the letter and get it postmarked so that it would be on the day of their name day. He would not wish them a happy name day even one day before. He was very rigorous and astute in the things that he did, and that was his personality. That was who he was. That was him imbibing the fullness of who God made him to be. It was his personality coupled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. And then you find that there are other saints who obviously were more relaxed, kind of sometimes even more go with the flow, a different temperament, a different way of being. Some saints are very clearly extroverts, and some saints are very clearly introverts. There is not one kind of saint, because every person is a unique individual. That is what we always take away when we read the lives of the saints. We always take away the principles of how they lived and embraced their life, how they embraced their love for God, how they embraced their love for the people around them, but each one of them did it in such a unique way. There is no cookie-cutter way to become a saint. The only way to become a saint is as yourself, but as yourself united with the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.