Worst advice people still gives

Be yourself.

This rather popular advice has damaged the quality of my life for a long time until I realized that it doesn’t work and is rather abstract

Everyone, left and right, romanticizes this “be yourself” idea. But, tell me, how can you give a 13-year old teenager the advice “be yourself”?

Half the world doesn’t know themselves, and you expect teenagers to “be themselves”?

I was “myself” for some time. I jumped around cold people, I joked with serious people and then I realized human relationships don’t work that way.

Many people will not understand you. With those kinds of people, you don’t be yourself. You follow social skills, unless you want to be hated by 99% of the world.

You can’t be yourself with people who don’t understand humor. You just can’t tell everyone about ideas which they will abhor. Not everyone is you and you can’t be you with everyone.

Unless, of course, if you don’t mind being hated by almost everyone you know.

Unfortunately, this advice is especially directed at teenagers which is disturbing to me. Do you expect a 13-year old teenager to have constructed their own values and morals?

Don’t be yourself.

Instead, explore. Stop saying “oh, I don’t like blueberries, it’s just who I am.”

Maybe, if you try blueberries, you will like them? Maybe when you say “I don’t like laughing, it’s just not who I am” you are just activating your placebo effect?

What if, instead of “being yourself”, you began improving your bad parts?

Nowadays, it seems that “it’s just who I am”has become an excellent excuse for being insecure.

People are not genetically born in “not liking laughing”. It takes work, it takes shape.

When we tell teenagers (and people) to be themselves, we are indirectly telling them that they must have these barriers (e.g. I don’t like blueberries or I don’t like going out) when most of the times they are just placebo effects.

A better advice is find yourself.

Find yourself until you know everything about yourself. And, chances are, you don’t even know 10% of yourself at the age of 13, so start exploring and not bringing excuses with “I am being myself”.

Nobody ever knows themselves and, moreover, people change. (Remember you five years ago?)