"Be yourself" - is this wise advice?

[joko]

people are told 'to thine own self be true'

be true to yourself, stand up for what you believe, never be afraid to be yourself, believe in yourself. etc

when i was younger, in my hippy days we used to write it on our jeans etc and we wholeheartedly believed it! haha

now i know what this means 'in spirit' obviously, and its a nice sentiment... but really, some of the people i know...they really shouldnt be themselves...because they are rotten...

i am sure if everyone 'genuinely' was totally themselves, and not governed by societal norms etc then the world would be a horrible place and a lot of people would be a total nightmare...

what do you think?

[missnemesis]

Some people may turn out to be nightmares joko but at least it would be the real them. I'd far rather people were honest and true to themselves, and others. At least that way you would know where you stood. Social nicities are all well and good but they also breed resentment and hypocrisy.

Why should we have to say 'of course your bum doesn't look big in that' when it clearly does? I'd rather be told.

[joko]

im not talking about merely being polite or telling little white lies to save someones feelings. besides there is a fine line between being honest and simply being nasty and thoughtless ... but that isn't really 'being yourself' either way...

yes id rather people were less fake in general and weren't so keen to follow the heard and conform - but i mean on a deeper level... being deeply true to yourself, to what you really want and what you really are in your soul ...

i am not saying people shouldn't be true to themselves in many ways, people should follow their dreams etc, but truly if they were totally 'as they pleased' i dont think it would be as ideal and the 'ideal' suggests, unfortunately.
you could get down to the deepest basest levels that bring out incest, murder, abuse etc...

[mccfluff]

i don;t think so right now i'm in a bad mood and i want to go and throw things at the sales staff

[woofgang]

But I honestly believe at the deepest level most of us aren't abusers, murderers rapists and so on because those qualities wouldn't allow a community to cohere and community coherence is what supports the continued existence of individuals. My question is which myself should I be because there are loads of me...each as valid and real as all the others.

[joko]

true woofgang but all those variations are still facets of the same stone...

just faces for different people and circumstances...

[TWR]

I'm afraid to say Joko, is what you see is what you get from me, why beat about the bush? if it's white it's white "simple"