We All Struggle With the Balance Between Being Our True Selves and Being Accepted
I have some advice that you might not be expecting.
The common advice for people is that we should strive to be ourselves. This advice is often told to us as we’re also being advised exactly how we should behave. If you want this job, to get the girl, or to be happy do xyz. Well… which is it?
Are we supposed to be striving to be ourselves or following rigid guidelines to get anything we want in life? It’s funny because people often tell you to be yourself but when that doesn’t work they immediately tell you what you were doing wrong. I’m sorry? I was being myself! Isn’t that supposed to be the key to my happiness?
Here’s the thing, unless yourself is perfectly suited to get everything you want in life, you really can’t be yourself at all times. That’s right, I said it. In fact, I think most people should NOT be themselves in many situations. That’s the key though. The nuance that is often lost in these conversations.
When it comes to things like getting a job, getting a promotion or even getting elected for some position, you probably don’t want to simply be yourself. Your goal here doesn’t jive well with just being your own quirky self. You’re trying to get people to like you so you can succeed at your goal.
You are likely a fantastic person but there’s a good chance your unfettered personality will not go down with any number of people. This isn’t a bad thing. Not everyone will like you even when you’re donning the mask to improve your odds of success. Unless you like everyone you meet, you probably shouldn’t expect everyone to like you.
We live in a society, full of differing individuals. To make things work, we actually do need some degree of conformity. Conformity is not the enemy. It’s a mask you put on as necessary, then you take it off once it isn’t. When you’re at work sitting in on a meeting, your personality might be inclined to crack jokes but that’s just going to slow down the meeting. Everyone just wants to get done with this meeting. So, you conform.
Where you should avoid conforming is in relationships. This is where the nuance comes in though, because even in relationships you might have to behave differently than you might so choose. Any relationship you choose, you shouldn’t change who you are. If they don’t like the real you, move on.
However, what about your partner’s parents? Perhaps you’re a fun loving individual and they’ve just got sticks inserted really far up their butts. If you want to get along with them, you’ll likely choose to keep the shenanigans down to a minimum, right?
When you’re hanging out with a friend, if they’re a real friend, you can be yourself. You can let it all hang out and they’re gonna stick around for the real you. If they bring a group of friends you don’t really know though, you may find yourself tweaking things a little to get along. This is absolutely fine. You aren’t betraying yourself by doing this.
Yeah, so many people act like being anything but your authentic self all the time is self betrayal. That’s nonsense, in my opinion. You live in the real world and we all need to get along to get ahead. As long as you can separate the mask from yourself, be what you need to be in the moment.
I’m not talking about being a complete chameleon and pretending you are something you aren’t. It just means smoothing off some of the rough edges to get along with everyone around you. Let’s be real, while we’re talking about this.
Are you really perfect just as you are? Are you your best self? I’d bet not, even if you’re striving to be so.
I’ll give myself as an example here. The real me, had a tendency of talking way too much. Not only that but talking over people as well. I also used to correct people constantly. If you were wrong and I knew it, I’d call you out on it.
I think we can all agree that this would be annoying to deal with, right? So, I’ve been working for some time to stop doing these things as often. I’ve gotten much better at it, though I’ve yet to perfect it by any means.
This would be an example of something you might want to change about yourself. This isn’t a betrayal, just like changing some of your rougher edges to get along with the people around you isn’t.
Long story short, being yourself is, to some extent, overrated. None of us actually believe this is what we should do. If we did, we wouldn’t strive to improve ourselves. We wouldn’t look at a behavior and think to ourselves that it needed to be changed.
None of us are perfect and we have plenty of things to improve to better interact with everyone around us. I didn’t really touch upon it earlier, but being yourself can also mean accepting negative thoughts and behaviors that really only hurt us. Why would we do that?
So, don the mask when need be but there’s an even better method. Become the person you want to be. It won’t be easy but it will be worth it.
Here are a few of my other articles for those so interested.
Thanks for reading!
