Is “Be Yourself” Bullshit?

What would be your answer to the question of the title?

As for me, I would say, “yes” and “no”. No, it’s not bullshit because I do agree that you can’t always fool people by manipulating them or pretend to be someone that you’re not just to make people like you. Yes, because we all know that in a society we can’t always be who we are and doing what we’re doing, which I think the advice is bullshit.

I understand the genuine intention of “be yourself”. The advice of course is great in a few ways. Yes, you have to be confident with yourself, so that people can love you for who you are. However, it’s pretty much impossible in my case. I’m just kind of tired of people telling me to be myself because I know deep in my heart, in a lot of ways I would never be “myself”.

Some people might think, “Oh, if they like me, then great. If they don’t, I don’t care”. Well, it’s not wrong. You can’t please everyone and you don’t need validation from anyone to be who you want. The thing is that you can’t always do what you want as if you don’t have people around you.

We’re just human beings. We need people around us, so most of the time we will fit our behaviors according to the situations we are in, or to the kind of people we are with. Are you the same person when you’re with your family as when you’re with your friends? You can behave authentically, but you might not aware that you have some sorts of social or physiological habits that keep you from being truly YOU.

I think the advice of “be yourself” is not always helpful to handle a lot of situations in social interactions. Sometimes you should also be “the other version of you”, so that you can manage to set the ethics to engage or work around people, whether you’re trying to be someone else or not.

The better explanation is probably this:

First, you can pretend to be someone else, but it would be hard for you to pull it off. For example, you can’t always pretend to have the interests or skills you don't actually have. It’s just you lie to yourself. Second, you can change your behavior even if it takes time, but once your behavior changed, that behavior will be part of “yourself”.

In short, no one will ever be just one “self”.

“Be yourself" is an excellent advice for some people, but it could also be a toxic advice if you’re that kind of person who cares over the judgments of others. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist and cares about other people’s opinions, if the opinion somehow makes you a better person. Therefore, I think it’s completely okay to “change yourself” in a way of thinking that it is actually part of “yourself”.

So what would be the better advice?

I would say..

“Be comfortable with yourself”,

“Be the best version of yourself”, or

“Be your best self”.

You can decide what best for yourself, what are the things that make you happy and you can keep doing it, and which are the things that make you unhappy and you can hold it back. If being “yourself” is the reason that you get the judgments by others, and it makes you unhappy, then you can’t avoid it. You should overcome it by being the other version of you that is stronger and better.

The sad truth is that we live in a society that makes us live with the double standard. If we really have the freedom to be who we are, then there will be no racist, bullying, bigotry, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and there will be no beauty standards. We just live in a cruel world that either good or bad, people will always judge.

We don’t choose our birthplace, birth gender, skin color, or our ethnicity. However, we can choose to be kind, humble, generous, and respectful. That being said, I will keep “pretending” to be “someone else” in front of certain people, but don’t worry, that “someone else” is also part of myself.

This world is like a stage show, and all human beings are merely actors.