Be yourself.

Be yourself! This is the worst advice I’ve ever received. Yourself is going to have problems. Actually? Everyone has problems, and if you’re unfortunate enough to have problems so bad that no one likes you, then you get even more damaging advice. People tell you that you have to change now. That you have to be better.

You can’t change who you are. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot about ourselves we can improve. You can learn how to live a healthier life, cope with, and ultimately manage your problems in a way that doesn’t make you want to commit suicide, but ultimately it’s what you can’t change that people judge you for.

For example, if you have a mental illness. Say, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, you name it. There’s many kinds of typically trauma induced conditions. Sometimes you’re just born that way though. All of these don’t just go away. They’re here to stay no matter what you do. They’re a quirk, a unique trait you have that explains the way you think. Still don’t believe me? Here’s another example, if you have an IQ of 100 which is perfectly average, you can’t just train to have an IQ over 130 becoming a genius. It doesn’t work like that.

There’s many more examples of these limitations we all have making us who we are. The unchanging reality that must be endured. So you shouldn’t be yourself because that’s an issue for people. You’re not good enough. Yet you also can’t really change because that’s not possible. You have limits. People will tell you to do one of these two things and they’re wrong. So what can you do? You have to make the most of what you are. You’ll find this is most of life. Discovering what you can’t change and therefore learning how to make the most of it.

Life is not something to accept as it is. Nor is it something to change. There’s a third option that people don’t seem to understand. It’s taking everything that currently is, and adding to it. No! Don’t modify it and make it something else. No! Don’t look at the facts and say that’s all there is. Add to it. I’m asking you to create something here. Don’t corrupt with a judgment on what it is and therefore what it must be. These are only part of the picture no matter how accurate that detail may be.

There’s a wonderful bigger picture you’re slowly creating over time even if where you currently are is considered problematic. I hate the term “mental illness”. There’s nothing wrong with you like the world would have you believe when they’re trying to sell you something. You simply don’t have enough added to you yet.

Why is it that we love kids and try to add everything positive we can to them but we forget that adults need this too? We don’t look at a child struggling and say, “look at everything wrong with you”. We try to teach them. Yet we look at adults who were never taught and that’s exactly what we say to them. We say, ”you have so much wrong with you”. It’s heartbreaking.

You’re not sick in the head. You’re a beautiful human being and I wouldn’t have you become anything else. You just need some additions. The right ones. Everyone has the ability to create these. You don’t need to be an artist for that. You simply need to make value in what is. Not what isn’t. Life is meaningless, and this is why you can’t be happy with things as they are, but you also can’t make it become meaningful either. All you can do is see it as more after you give it meaning.

I’m not going to ask you to be yourself and set you up for failure. I also won’t ask you to change because that’s cruel when you can’t. All I’ll ask is that you recognize worth as something you make, and not as something that happens. Do this and everything bad becomes good.

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kimmy159 · F

And yet, being yourself is the only thing you can ever be. You can’t be anyone else, you can’t be more than yourself. You can choose to try and change something, then both that choice and the change become part of yourself. You can choose to portray yourself different than you really are, but even by doing so… you’re still yourself :-))

Reject · 31-35, M

@kimmy159 I think that one’s self can always be more just as much as it can always be less.

kimmy159 · F

@Reject I usually agree with your posts/visions aside from this one haha (don’t worry, it doesn’t matter to either of us but I do like sharing my vision as well for the hell of it^^)

I can’t help but feel that it is contradictory. When you say you shouldn’t accept life as it is, nor try to change it, but add to it… well adding to something is change itself :-))
The real third option as I see it, would be to neither accept or alter anything, but that seems like a bitter option, and life can’t be lived through a status quo. As you’ve said, life only holds the meaning you give to it. As there is no greater purpose, we must conclude it’s subjective.

When people say ‘be yourself’, it is subjective too. Sure they see a shade of you and it will never be you as you fully are or see yourself. But when they say just be yourself, it‘s usually a compliment. They might just mean they like you as they see you, and trust in your future ‘additions’. They might like the work in progress that they see. And we’re always in progress.

Reject · 31-35, M

@kimmy159 To change oneself is to make you other than what you are. Right? Now to add to one self is also to make you other than what you are, but it doesn’t change what you already were.

If you have an apple and I give you another. This doesn’t mean you don’t have an apple anymore. It means you now have two. However, if I take the apple you have away instead of giving you another. You are changed now. You don’t have any apple.

The difference is tricky to explain, but one makes you have less, which is a change from what was. The other makes you have more which is also a change from what was, but without changing what was.

kimmy159 · F

@Reject the first paragraph explained your vision enough ;p

The way I see it;
“Yourself” is a concept, not a more or less thing where change can be measured.
Whether you have 1 or 2 apples sometimes isn’t the point, the point is that you already had the seed for the apple tree. Endlessly adding to that, might not result in real progress.
Not that I’m saying that should always be the case. Even that is subjective.

When you add to it, you’ll have a new self. When you change something, you’ll have a new self too.
Whatever really changed between the 2 versions is subjective to whether or not you give it value.
Others might not even see a difference, whereas you might experience it as an addition or something you’ve lost through change.
Or maybe we just agree to have a different take on the subject 😆

Reject · 31-35, M

@kimmy159 You keep pointing about subjectivity to make your case. You’re not wrong, these matters are subjective, but everything is. You can meet someone who believes the United States was established in 1777 and not 1776. Even facts themselves can be subjective. So what’s the difference here? One took away, the other didn’t. One said, I don’t like the fact of 1776. I’m going to change it to something else. The other said, I’m okay with that. There’s proof of it. I’m going to leave it as 1776 and learn something more. Both became new selves as you say, but they did it differently. One understood reality, the other didn’t even though this is ultimately subjective. To the one who changed things, 1777 is the reality.