Every now and then people keep dishing out the advice “be yourself” especially when it comes to relationships. This is possibly the worst form of advice you can ever give to an individual. Guess what would have happened if cave man (zinjanthropus, proconsul or neanderthal man among others) had decided to be himself? We would be living in caves, lighting bonfires, and eating raw meat. Cave man decided not to be himself, and thanks to that you and I are now keyboard warriors. If you closely evaluate yourself, you’ll realize that you have changed a lot over the years as you went through different life stages and as you racked up valuable life experiences. But now you are advising people to remain static by “being themselves”? As a species the dynamism harbored by human beings is simply impressive. We have learn’t a lot of valuable lessons that have enabled us work as a herd towards our collective well being. But most of the time it’s double speak, people who advise others to “be themselves” are the same ones asking obese and overweight people not to “be themselves” by requesting them to change their lifestyles.
When it comes to relationships “being yourself” is also mediocre advice that belongs to the dungeons. Even in marriage and other relationships, your partner changes their way of thinking and operating over the years and you’ve got to adjust with changing times. Do people realize that they are not “being themselves” when they decide to adopt some anger management strategies or different grooming, or start some exercise regime. If you are not successful in dating, “being yourself” and waiting for someone who “deserves you” will get you nowhere. If you want to improve your chances, It’s time to change tact…have the temerity to step forth in a restaurant/mall/hall/street/college and say hi to that girl that you admire and strike a conversation… If you haven’t had successful relationships in the past it’s time to evaluate yourself and identify areas for improvement. You have to realize that you are not “being yourself” when you mask that body odour with your “1 million” cologne. Be ready to learn, be ready to change tact, be ready to adopt different strategies, be ready to try new things, be ready to take criticism, be ready to accept failure and rejection but aim for different results. Just don’t be yourself.
Be yourself means recognizing that what is valuable and worthy about you is not how much money you have or your job title or even family background. Being yourself means that you trust and believe in yourself and your own innate abilities and recognize that they are what draw others to you.
If you feel the need to impress a certain love interest by changing who you are, know that you have low self esteem, poor self awareness and very little self worth. It’s time not to “be yourself” and improve on those key elements.
What innate abilities? Every little ability apart from talents can be learned, and talents too can be improved… kindness, empathy, patience, sympathy, forgiveness, honesty name them, all can be learned. Every single one of them. People get drawn to you for many reasons not excluding beauty, power, wealth and physical appearance…
naelewa unajaribu kusema nini… but don’t u think it leads to problems in e.g marriages. You try being yourself you don’t get any chicks. So u decide to create a fake version of yourself; lie about your job, your salary, your health (pretending u don’t have an STD when u have one) and are able to lock down a girl. Ofcourse you can’t pretend for long so when reality sets in disaster happens…
The point is accept that life is dynamic and one should not be static. Who ever you are now is not who you were 10 years ago…the change was passive but you can have active change and grab life by the horns and take charge.
This is a different perspective but self improvement is not a linear progression…You don’t need to put up a facade…If you are mean, selfish, aggressive, dishonest, boring etc etc you can make a positive change…but it wont happen overnight…it may take years you’ll definitively have outbursts, or what you are referring to as “true self” but finally you will be less selfish, dishonest etc etc and show more of kindness, patience, self worth etc etc.
Yes. That is true but there are some people to whom some of these things come naturally that to others. Like I said, being yourself means that you are confident in those qualities that others value you for.
Honestly @Mkufuu this post of yours doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. If I’m in a relationship, who else am I supposed to be. When I come home to my girlfriend or wife and she says to me, how was your day, bhangi iwe huru, should I correct her and say, I’M BATMAN??? I’m I seriously supposed to learn parkour just so I can keep the interest of my woman? I have to believe in myself and know that she chose to be with me for a reason. Yes, she one day may get bored with me. But that isn’t really something that I can control. As a mature person, I should move on and hope the next relationship will work out. There are no guarantees in love. It is all risk. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and getting hurt is a part of the process.
There is no such thing as a successful relationship. All relationships are a continuous work in progress.
If you find it necessary to lie about your job, salary, wealth or health just know you have little self worth… IMO when people lie about what they own/wealth they build a fake self-esteem and develop confidence to impress another. when they are found out they lose this esteem and confidence and what follows is pretty obvious. You’ll be shocked the same person you were looking to impress might have settled down with you without those material things, had you been honest and appreciated your own self worth - but you lacked that in the first place…
