December 30, 2024
You ever asked someone for advice and instead of offering some actual helpful advice they say something along the lines of "Well, whatever you do, be sure to stay true to yourself." Great! What the fuck does that mean? I was just looking to partially offload my decision onto you, but instead you flip it back on me and give me an existential crisis or some shit, too. Well, I'm here to save you from these frightening individuals with the enlightened point of view that follows.
First of all, it seems like when people tell you to be true to yourself, they have some idea of "yourself"— of who you are. This is insane. The me that I show you isn't even really me. I mean, it is and is isn't. There are many yous. There's the you that 'you' allow your parents to see, the 'you' your friends might see, the 'you' spoken aloud and the 'you' just in your inner thoughts. There's all these different versions of you that the different people in your life get to see. So, when someone says to be true to yourself, they just told you they have a label they place on you to define your typical behavior around them. And when they give you this advice, they're telling you not to stray from this behavior they defined for you (well, really they determined it through observation).
Guess what, motherfucker? I am not your label of me. I am just me. Wait, who am I again?
It's not really possible to define who you are. You are not a series of definitions, labels, actions, etc. You're an extremely complex person whose motivations for things are not static and not transparent. You could be a person who has always bet tails on a coin flip for your whole goddamn life up 'til today. And then tomorrow you can flip a coin and proclaim it will land heads. That's still you. You are not "the person who always bets tails", you're 'you'.
The essence of this is that who you are is always changing. Who you were yesterday and the day before is not who you are today, and it's certainly not who you will be tomorrow. Some of this change is conscious ("I want to be a nicer person"), whereas some is unconscious ("I have become like those who raised me"). All of it is ok. You are not meant to be static. You are meant to change. There is no you, because by the time you measure and figure out who you are, you've already gone and changed.
Look, there's nothing exactly wrong with the idea of trying to stay "true" to yourself. You can totally try to do it. But you end up assigning yourself some label of who you are and what that means. If you don't act according to this arbitrary definition of "you", then you're breaking the rules you've set for yourself! You might even end up disappointing yourself for not acting how you "should" be. How is that helpful?
If there's some advice I can give you, it's to never put yourself in a "box". A "box" is anything that places restrictions on who you are and who you can be. Usually they come in the form of labels, often those that others give you. Maybe you're 'the class clown', or maybe you're a gamer or even an engineer. These are all labels. But they're imperfect. They don't describe your essence. What makes you, you. These labels can be helpful descriptors, sure, but don't get trapped in them. If everyone knows you're a nice person, what happens if you need to stick up for yourself and be considered 'rude' that one time? What if you want to sing and dance and make art, but everyone knows you're the analytical engineer? What if you call yourself an introvert to justify that can't go to a social gathering?
This is why I have problems with things like personality tests, astrology, and even psychological categorizations like Jung's archetypes. Maybe putting this label helps you understand yourself. Or, maybe you put that label on yourself and become more understandable within the given psychological framework as a result? Maybe you're not behaving like a gemini because of the month you were born, but rather because you know how a gemini is supposed to behave, and find yourself behaving that way as a result: a self-fulfilling prophecy. Say you put a lot of stock in MBTI typing. Then, if you don't behave the way your MBTI predicts you will, you'll have to challenge your own fundamental beliefs about human behavior. For your own self-preservation of sanity, it's far easier just to be "true to yourself".
Defy these definitions of yourself and just do what you want to do. Or, do something that surprises you. If you're the reasonable person who always plans everything very carefully, make some ridiculous, spontaneous decisions. Go on that last-minute trip. Quit your job with nothing lined up. It will probably turn out okay. And when it does, you will have changed, grown as a person. You'll know more of what you want and don't want, and what you're actually capable of. You will have experienced more and enriched your life in ways you never would have if you had just stuck with the behavior of your "true self".
The most harmful thing you can do for your own growth is to restrict what you're allowed to do. Staying "true to yourself" does just that. Don't blindly follow your own past behavior, and definitely don't behave exactly the way others expect and want you to. Go out and explore your own behavior and hopefully come back with a brand new you.