Why “Just Be Yourself” Doesn’t Even Make Sense as Advice

When someone lacks confidence, common advice is, “just be yourself.”

But what does this mean? What is this “self” that we should be? Where is it? How can we find it?

Let’s burst this wide open and see what’s inside…

When are you truly “being yourself”?

When you’re with your close friends? When you’re on your own?

Should you behave like that in every other situation in life?

For example:

• At work, should you behave like you’re on a fun night out with your friends?
• On a date, should you behave like you’re watching YouTube on your own in your pyjamas?

NO! That would be a disaster!

Of course, you shouldn’t be fake, either. At a job interview, don’t say you are an expert in something you’re not. On a date, don’t say you like something you hate just because they like it.

Life is a game with rules

Each situation you’re in is one particular round of the Game of Life. Your goal? To win, but not at the expense of other people. Get the best from each situation for everyone involved.

But be clear on what the goal is each time. For example:

• Job interview — find out if it is the right job for you. If so, your goal is then to convince the other person.
• Date — find out if they are a good match for you. If they are, your goal is to convince them to believe the same.

In those scenarios, you don’t need to be fake. You just need to play the game by the rules to win.

Don’t care what others think? That’s a dangerous path

Some people say they don’t care what other people think of them. I’m always sceptical of that. They are probably either a liar or a psychopath.

It’s usually a defence mechanism. Often, these people are too sensitive to what other people think, so they adopt an “I don’t care” attitude to protect themselves.

It’s OK not to care what random strangers think about you. That’s just avoiding unnecessary anxiety. But not caring what ANYONE thinks, even your friends and family, is inconsiderate and selfish.

Don’t just push your way through life, thinking you’re always right and disregarding whatever everyone else says. But also, don’t be a people-pleaser who’s afraid to argue with anyone.

As with many things in life, the best approach is somewhere in the middle. It’s better to intelligently decide who is worth listening to and who isn’t. Because sometimes, other people know things we don’t. Those close to us might need to show us things we can’t see.

You’re not separate from everyone else

You live in a world in which your behaviour has an effect other others. Other people’s behaviour affects you, even if you pretend it doesn’t. We are all interwoven with the world around us in ways we don’t always perceive.

This is why I’m sceptical of the idea that we have complete control over our emotions. People think it’s empowering to say that you alone can decide whether you are happy or unhappy. But that’s not how people are.

If someone is an asshole towards you, it will upset you, even if you try to pretend otherwise. And if you’re an asshole towards someone else, it will upset them, even if they try to pretend otherwise.

This is why it matters how we treat each other.

Approaching life with an “I don’t care” attitude is reckless. If you behave towards others as if you don’t care about them, that attitude will come back to bite you.

Treat those around you as if they are part of you. Because, in effect, they are.

You don’t have an unchanging single self

In each situation, you will be a bit different. In very different situations, you will be very different. You have a work self, a family self, a close friends self, a casual acquaintances self, and so on. You also have an alone self, but that’s no more real than any of the other selves.

You could consider all of these selves to be part of you. You could consider some of them the real you and some of them to be pretend.

But all of that starts to fall apart once you realise that none of it is permanent anyway. You’re always a bit different, depending on where you are in time and space. The feeling of there being an unchanging core called “you” is an illusion.

Every experience changes you

People with severe traumatic childhood experiences are likely to struggle in life. Those who have happy childhoods and no significant trauma are more likely to have happier lives.

But experiences we have later in life shape us too. For example:

• If I were to spend five years studying Japanese, it would change me. I would become somebody who can speak Japanese. That would cause all kinds of subsequent changes in my life.
• I could go and spend a year living in Japan and come back with a totally different view of life.
• I could spend five years in the British Army, fight in a war, and return a completely different person.

But these are just extreme examples. In everyday life, much smaller changes are always happening. Every little experience we have changes us a tiny bit. So, who we are is not fixed.

You are not a noun, but a verb

You are not a person that things happen to. You are the happenings.

For example:

• When riding a bike, you’re not a separate person riding a bike. In that moment, you ARE the experience of riding the bike.
• When you find something laugh-out-loud funny, you’re not a person laughing. You ARE the laughter, or rather the experience of laughing.
• When you are having a conversation with someone, you’re not two separate entities to which the conversation is happening. You ARE the conversation.

Everything you experience is…well, something you experience, including your thoughts, memories and emotions. By definition, you ARE your experiences because, without your experiences, you would be nothing.

This is the essence of meditation and many spiritual paths. Stripping back everything that isn’t you until there’s nothing left, and you realise there was never a separate you in the first place.

You are a series of experiences that just so happen to be taking place from a particular point of view. But there’s no “you” there that’s separate from the things you are experiencing.

Even when you think you’ve found the “you” that is experiencing the experiences, that, too, is merely an experience. And one day, you will cease having experiences, so you won’t exist anymore.