Be yourself is a non-statement. I don't know what it means. Does it mean follow my primal urges? Follow my idealistic goals? It doesn't say anything.
For example, if someone wants to impress someone else, they may act in a way they think is in line with that someone else's wants and values. This can result in awkward and embarrassing situations since it's not natural or well-practiced, and it can result in being deceitful.
Instead it's better to acknowledge and be sensitive toward what that someone else wants and values, but to still behave in a way that is true to our own wants and values.
I both want to play video games for hours and focus on applications of Richards Curves. I want to exercise and not exercise. I want to meet people and take care of social relationships, and have lots of time to myself. Which desires are more authentic? If one desire transcends a mere want and becomes a value, how would we distinguish that? And then, how would we distill that into meaningful advice?
Probably not effectively with the words "be yourself."
Agreed. It's an easy platitude to give, which is probably why it's so common.
> it's not really clear to me that there's an absolute dividing line there, or that it's even easy to sort out decidedly intrinsic/internal values into authentic or not authentic.
Right, it's nebulous and a good subject for philosophy textbooks. As far as practical advice goes, I think it's not too much to say that you can draw the line when you're behaving in a way that feels unnatural in hopes that others will respond positively to it.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Albus Dumbledore
The most charitable interpretation I can give the advice is, "Yeah, you're not skilled at this, and there isn't much I can do to help. But there are likeable aspects about yourself, and they don't shine through if you're constantly focusing on imitating some external model of how to do it right. The best you can hope for is not to have such unforced errors, so that at least you can keep whatever wins come from the real you."
If they think "you're naturally skilled at this", they're usually mistaken.
My charitable version is what people would say if they could be honest and were aware of the relevant facts on the ground.
My problems couldn’t be fixed merely by someone telling me to “be myself”, but they had the right idea.
We have completely different anecdata. I've said and heard people say "be yourself" many times. Rarely have I seen it go awry. Typically the people who say "be yourself" are naturally skilled at social interaction, so they can read whether the person is also able to socialize and make the right decision. But I can see how someone who lacks social skills might repeat the saying without even noticing the level of social skills of the person they're saying it to. Much like what this commenter was talking about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19702757
It's especially useful in the short term context (let's say you have an interview tomorrow): you don't have enough time to pivot your personality, if you try, the judging person will read your inauthenticity as something fishy and you will increase your odds of missing out on your objective.
But in so many contexts -especially in dating- it gets misinterpreted as long term advice "you are entitled for others to accept you as you are and/or eventually someone will accept you as you are, and your objective X will be met"
Hoffman: ... are you being yourself?
Law [increduluous]: How am I not myself?!
Hoffman : "How am I not myself."
Law: _How am I not myself?_
Hoffman : "How am I not myself."
Law [distressed, starting to choke up]: How am I not myself.
The reason the advice "be yourself" exists, and also why older people tend to be the ones expressing it, is that the danger in not being yourself is that you may wake up one day in a career or surrounded by people that do not accept you for who you are. And you end up trapped in a life where you have to pretend to be something you're not. The idea is that the younger you start being honest about yourself to others, the sooner you will wind up away from people that do not like your true self, and closer to people that appreciate you for that true self.
If you are an introvert, do not spend your life trying to pretend you are an extrovert. Instead, embrace your introversion and find a sustainable way to get the social interaction you need/want.
If you do not enjoy managing people, you will fall behind people who do enjoy it, so instead spending your years unhappy and trapped, try to find a career ladder where you can focus on being a great individual contributor.
If someone close to you just died and you are grieving, do not try to pretend that you're fine or cheerful for the sake of others. Take the time to process it however you need to.
There are plenty of other examples. This advice isn't really about how you act day to day, it's about making sure you are doing things for reasons you actually believe in.
It means to express yourself, your ideals, and to not conform entirely to peer pressure, or to conformity.
This is something we tell young people because they are often at the whim of social norms, some of which are bad, like 'Instagram popularity contests'.
It's generally I think decent advice, even for adults, for whom I think the notion of 'being authentic' would apply.
In this more specific light, find your own path rather than copying and pasting.
the latter is less uncompromising on how you go about living and presenting yourself but contains the same principle of unity between knowing when your acting in the world is aligned with your ethic and when it isn't, so that either your acting or your ethic can move to the point the other is, to reduce entropy in your life.