Be yourself

[DcloudZ 0]

We grow up hearing the term 'Be Yourself'

Say, for example, you want to get along with a certain crowd of people in school, but "being yourself" isn't attractive to this crowd and therefore you decide to change your appearance and/or act differently to get the crowd to like you.

You are still being yourself. Because by definition, being yourself is acting how you would act. So 'yourself' is someone who is easily influenced or someone who conforms to others' ideals.

There is no such thing as not being yourself.

Had to get that off my chest, it's a fallacy!!

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

[NorrinRadd 0]

When your behaviour and style is changed to reflect a need to conform to your perspective of other people's expectations. That is what people refer to when you are not 'being yourself' If I don't like a certain band, but all my friends do, and I think that if I want to fit in, I have to listen to it, so I do even though I don't like it, then I am not being myself.
Sure... it is not a good way of saying it when you take it literally, but that is the English language for you. When was the last time you actually TOOK a piss or a shit?

Why drive myself crazy trying to be normal, when I am already at crazy?

[JohnMitchell 14]

People change, people grow up. I'm not the person I was when I was 12, and certainly not the guy I was when I was 20. Just be true to yourself and don't let others tell you what to like.

[DcloudZ 0]

I understand what you're trying to say, but by conforming to your perspective of other people's expectations that means that it is in your personality to be someone who conforms to your perspective of other people's expectations. Therefore you are being yourself by conforming!

Damn it, I'm sounding crazy

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

[NWFlyer 2]

I think a better way of expressing it is "be true to yourself." Meaning be true to your beliefs, your values, your opinions, your preferences, etc.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[NorrinRadd 0]

I think it is just a matter of semantics. But so long as the idea is conveyed, all is good :)

Why drive myself crazy trying to be normal, when I am already at crazy?

[Croc 0]

NorrinRadd

I think it is just a matter of semantics. But so long as the idea is conveyed, all is good :)

Unless you're a jerk. In that case, better try to be someone else!

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

Ever read Illuminatus! by Robert Wilson? There's a bit in there where Hagbard asks Simon "So who are you?" and Simon has this vision of himself in the house of Simon, running from room to room trying to find the owner of the house. He finally answers "There's nobody home," sure this isn't a good enough answer. Hagbard says "Funny. Who's conducting the search?"

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

[quade 3]

Be myself? Shouldn't I be aiming just a wee bit higher?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[rifleman 61]

Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Atheism is a Non-Prophet Organisation

[quade 3]

rifleman

Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Irony.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[BIGUN 1,053]

What no lecture on citing the source?
Here, I'll get it.... Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[quade 3]

BIGUN

Here, I'll get it.... Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3

That was the ironic part. Quoting Shakespeare's speech about being yourself in a thread about being yourself.

As for attribution, anyone who didn't know that was Shakespeare probably couldn't be helped by this thread anyway.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Squeak 17]

quade

***Here, I'll get it.... Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3

That was the ironic part. Quoting Shakespeare's speech about being yourself in a thread about being yourself.

As for attribution, anyone who didn't know that was Shakespeare probably couldn't be helped by this thread anyway.Spoken like a judgmental small minded man.

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[quade 3]

I realize you're just "being yourself," but bite me.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver