Is it Possible to "Just Be Yourself"?

i prefer 'be true to yourself' rather then just 'be yourself', as long as i know that whatever i am doing, i am doing it because i want to or i believe in it or for my own reasons then i am being true to myself. i'll come finish this thought off later when i've had a coffee......

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I suppose when someone says "be yourself" they mean to just go with your feeling rather than what you think someone else expects you to be. That what actors do. They pull on their own experiences, feelings, and emotions and create the character by being themselves.

A serial killer is not naturally a killer. He was made that way through a series of extraordinary traumas in early childhood. His psyche has become so twisted that it would be impossible for him to be himself without a lot of painful therapy. In a neurotic society such as ours, their is a collective denial that a baby could be made into a serial killer, and not that long ago, a demon would have been blamed; now we just say he was born that way, or "we'll never know," and execute them ensuring that we'll never know.

Serial killers are put to death because of the "out of sight, out of mind syndrome." If the killer investigates himself through intensive therapy and discovers the cause of his sociopathic condition, then our own neuroses become more evident.

Instead of being comfortable going to war we would go into therapy instead. Think of George Bush going into therapy instead of Iraq; thousands of lives and billions of dollars could be spent elsewhere. Michael Jackson, rather than spending millions defending his neurosis with the walls of Neverland, would have gone into therapy instead slowly breaking down his neurosis.

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Ray wrote:

Wait, so if I was not happy with my personality and was trying to change it, I would not be sincere?

Didn't mean that at all. When I say be sincere, I am saying not to misrepresent your thoughts and feelings, although there are times when you don't want to volunteer them.

Wait, so if I was not happy with my personality and was If that was what you were stating, I would disagree completely.

If we were to let our subconscious control what we do, what we would get is a mess.[/quote]
Sure, but who said to do that? I said to just say what you think without planning a response calculated to produce a result.

Ray wrote:

This is probably not what you're saying though.

No, it's not.

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coluber2001 wrote:

Think of George Bush going into therapy instead of Iraq; thousands of lives and billions of dollars could be spent elsewhere.

Unless Hussein had had WMD, as Bush and a few million other Americans thought, in which case one might have woken up one morning to news of the obliteration of Los Angeles. That would have cost a lot of money and lives too. In fact, it really isn't clear that if Bush hadn't threatened invasion over and over there wouldn't have been WMD or at least WMD development programs there today.

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Well the response "just be yourself" is generally used when someone asks, "how should I act, behave, what should I say" ... etc., etc. It is someone asking for advice, unsure of how they will be perceived or wanting to make a good impression in some situation. The response is rote for the most part. The responder does not have the expertise (or perhaps the energy) to give a valid breakdown of the questioners wide-open request. How does someone analyse and opine how someone else should act in a scenario when it is really pretty much an unanswerable question - opinions of others being useful as a mere guide only? Had the questioner been smarter they would have asked "how would YOU act in this situation". The responder would then have a better response and not be as ready to fob them off with a "be yourself" reply. This response it our way of saying "oh for Gods sake, think for yourself man, must I do everything for you!"

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i take the admonition to be yourself more figuratively. unless you're a master of disguise, there isn't much choice but to be yourself. rather, i think the point is using your own judgement rather than relying on the opinions of others. of course, if you have bad judgement, the results could be bad, but at least it was your bad judgement and not the bad judgement of your peers, superiors, and what have you.

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Heeven wrote:

Well the response "just be yourself" is generally used when someone asks, "how should I act, behave, what should I say" ... etc., etc. It is someone asking for advice, unsure of how they will be perceived or wanting to make a good impression in some situation. The response is rote for the most part. The responder does not have the expertise (or perhaps the energy) to give a valid breakdown of the questioners wide-open request. How does someone analyse and opine how someone else should act in a scenario when it is really pretty much an unanswerable question - opinions of others being useful as a mere guide only? Had the questioner been smarter they would have asked "how would YOU act in this situation". The responder would then have a better response and not be as ready to fob them off with a "be yourself" reply. This response it our way of saying "oh for Gods sake, think for yourself man, must I do everything for you!"

I disagree. I believe that being oneself is an extremely powerful technique for making friends and influencing people, and much failure occurs because someone does the opposite. It is correct and powerful advice.

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yitwail wrote:

i take the admonition to be yourself more figuratively. unless you're a master of disguise, there isn't much choice but to be yourself. rather, i think the point is using your own judgement rather than relying on the opinions of others. of course, if you have bad judgement, the results could be bad, but at least it was your bad judgement and not the bad judgement of your peers, superiors, and what have you.

No, "be yourself" is an admonition not to attempt to project a false persona for effect, which many people do.

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Oh I agree with being oneself and how important it is, but I do think that the response "just be youself" as used by people these days is rote and not really intended as a deep discussion on what a persons individuality is made up of. People use this response so they don't have to get into all of that.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

No, "be yourself" is an admonition not to attempt to project a false persona for effect, which many people do.

that too, although i wouldn't use the adjective "false." again, personas are necessarily false in one sense, but in this case it suggests deception, which i don't think is the case. rather, people emulate whomever they think is cool and they sincerely want to be "just like" their role models, but they only succeed in superficial resemblence. so, be yourself in this case warns against superficiality, rather than deception, and if anyone is deceived, it's probably the wannabe that deceives his or her own self.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

coluber2001 wrote:
Think of George Bush going into therapy instead of Iraq; thousands of lives and billions of dollars could be spent elsewhere.

Unless Hussein had had WMD, as Bush and a few million other Americans thought, in which case one might have woken up one morning to news of the obliteration of Los Angeles. That would have cost a lot of money and lives too. In fact, it really isn't clear that if Bush hadn't threatened invasion over and over there wouldn't have been WMD or at least WMD development programs there today.

Come on and admit it; Bush is a reactionary and so deeply intertwined in lies and spin that telling the truth even once would cause a ever widening chink in administration's armor. Don't expect the Bush administration to be straight with the public even once; it is a house of cards, and no dissention is tolerated within or without. Bush's true calling is dictator of a bannana republic. He is incapable of leading a first world country, and his reactionary politics will backfire with diastrous results, if not for us in the immediate future, then for our children.

The intelligence on WMDs was manuipulated by the Bush administration to justify his dreams of invading Iraq and transforrming the Middle East. The rest of the world depended on our intelligence reporst regarding the WMDs. They'll know better next time.

It is widely believed by left-wingers as well as right-wingers including Pat Buchanan that terrorist attacks on America and American-occupied countries in the Middle East was motivated by an opposition of Islamists to America occupying lands in the Middle East. Our occupation in Iraq will only encourage and not discourage terrorist attacks on American soil and interests.

That Bush was able to convince the U.S. people that they were under danger of attack from Iraq speaks of our gullibility and the willingness of this administration to resort to any form of propaganda. That Bush was willing to use outright lies to attain his distorted vision reminds me of how Hitler was able to move the German people into a frenzy of aggressive attacks on the rest of Europe. Bush's vision of solving future energy problems involves constant war and occupation in the Middle East rather than creating a solution at home via renewable energy and hydrogen and power is tantamount to nineteenth century politics. War will only destroy our country; it won't solve problems.

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coluber2001 wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
coluber2001 wrote:
Think of George Bush going into therapy instead of Iraq; thousands of lives and billions of dollars could be spent elsewhere.

Unless Hussein had had WMD, as Bush and a few million other Americans thought, in which case one might have woken up one morning to news of the obliteration of Los Angeles. That would have cost a lot of money and lives too. In fact, it really isn't clear that if Bush hadn't threatened invasion over and over there wouldn't have been WMD or at least WMD development programs there today.

Come on and admit it; Bush is a reactionary and so deeply intertwined in lies and spin that telling the truth even once would cause a ever widening chink in administration's armor. Don't expect the Bush administration to be straight with the public even once;

Please give two or more examples of these lies you assert Bush has told, or admit that you can't.

coluber2001 wrote:

...it is a house of cards, and no dissention is tolerated within or without.

Your reference to a house of cards implies imminent collapse. I see no evidence of this. Bush was elected to a second term. As for dissention not being tolerated within, I'm not sure how much dissention a president ought to tolerate within his administration. As for dissention not being tolerated without, please give an example.

coluber2001 wrote:

...Bush's true calling is dictator of a bannana republic. He is incapable of leading a first world country,

Mere name calling

coluber2001 wrote:

..and his reactionary politics will backfire with diastrous results, if not for us in the immediate future, then for our children.

My viewpoint is that there will be disastrous results if we do not (a) very aggressively pursue terrorists, and (b) very aggressively act to stop certain countries from acquiring WMD. You pretty much ignored my point, which was that at the moment of invasion, our level of information left a very real possibility that Hussein was continuing to hide his WMD, and WMD programs, and that these doomsday weapons in the possession of someone like him could be far more costly in money and lives than the invasion has been.

coluber2001 wrote:

The intelligence on WMDs was manuipulated by the Bush administration...

There was enough just in the overall timeline of events and the basic history to pose an unacceptable risk that Hussein had not destroyed his WMD and/or programs, regardless of anything Bush did or didn't say.

coluber2001 wrote:

...to justify his dreams of invading Iraq and transforrming the Middle East. The rest of the world depended on our intelligence reporst regarding the WMDs. They'll know better next time.

You are simply guessing Bush's motive, which could just as easily be exactly what he said - fear of WMDs augmented by hatred of Hussein's behavior towards his people.

coluber2001 wrote:

It is widely believed by left-wingers as well as right-wingers including Pat Buchanan that terrorist attacks on America and American-occupied countries in the Middle East was motivated by an opposition of Islamists to America occupying lands in the Middle East. Our occupation in Iraq will only encourage and not discourage terrorist attacks on American soil and interests.

First of all, if the insurgents would simply stop, we'd be out of there fairly quickly. It's primarily they who are keeping us there. Second of all, extreme Islam has declared war on us whether we fight back or not. Osama bin Laden, in his manifesto, said that they are calling to us to convert to Islam whether we like it or not. That strikes me as an unreasonable demand. We need to actively oppose them, since they will try to subvert our civilization whether we do or we don't. The idea that we should not fight back to keep from offending them is a cowardly philosophy. Fighting the axis powers in WW2 probably also angered them.

coluber2001 wrote:

That Bush was able to convince the U.S. people that they were under danger of attack from Iraq speaks of our gullibility and the willingness of this administration to resort to any form of propaganda. That Bush was willing to use outright lies to attain his distorted vision reminds me of how Hitler was able to move the German people into a frenzy of aggressive attacks on the rest of Europe.

Some people are able to think for themselves and wanted to invade Iraq before Bush even ran for president. Like I said, give two examples of the lies you assert he told, or admit that you can't.

coluber2001 wrote:

Bush's vision of solving future energy problems involves constant war and occupation in the Middle East rather than creating a solution at home via renewable energy and hydrogen and power is tantamount to nineteenth century politics.

You are simply guessing his motives. Give some evidence that this, rather than what he claims, is motivating him.

coluber2001 wrote:

War will only destroy our country; it won't solve problems.

It seems to have solved a few problems in the past, starting with the American Revolution.

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Oh you mean like to not do something that you don't think is right even though it might give a payoff?

Quote:

Sure, but who said to do that? I said to just say what you think without planning a response calculated to produce a result.

But we're always trying to produce a result with our responses.

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Ray wrote:

Oh you mean like to not do something that you don't think is right even though it might give a payoff?

Quote:
Sure, but who said to do that? I said to just say what you think without planning a response calculated to produce a result.

But we're always trying to produce a result with our responses.

No, that's sure NOT what I meant. I'm not talking about moral right and wrong at all. I mean to give your true opinion or feeling as you speak, rather than acting a part that you think will be more effective than your true personality.

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brandon9000,
....You said, "The results could be disastrous, if we do not stop CERTAIN countries, from aquiring WMD" ..seeing as how while bush was lying about WMD's in Iraq, North Korea was saying,"Yeah we got 'em; S-O-O WHAT!; "CERTAIN" must allude to countries, rich in oil, and/or susceptible to profiteering , by VP Cheney's old cronies. Shocked

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booman2 wrote:

brandon9000,
....You said, "The results could be disastrous, if we do not stop CERTAIN countries, from aquiring WMD" ..seeing as how while bush was lying about WMD's in Iraq, North Korea was saying,"Yeah we got 'em; S-O-O WHAT!; "CERTAIN" must allude to countries, rich in oil, and/or susceptible to profiteering , by VP Cheney's old cronies.

Once again, you are assuming people's motives with many alternative motives possible, such as just what they say they are, and no way to verify your psychic look into their minds.

The certain countries in question are ones which, if they came into possession of serious WMD, would be likely to use them, or at least use them for blackmail. A nuclear Hussein might, for instance, say, "I'm going to reinvade Kuwait. Now try and stop me." An example of a country that ought not to be allowed to possess significant WMD would be a country with a brutal dictator, who tries to annex his neighbors, and who is friendly enough with terrorists that there is a reasonable chance he might give them WMD. In other words really, really out of control countries that would be hideously dangerous should they attain a powerful WMD capacity.

North Korea is certainly such a country, but the problem is that it's too late. They ought to have been stopped from obtaining WMD, like Iraq has now been stopped. Since we foolishly allowed them to develop nuclear weapons, we no longer possess the option of invading, since they could use their nukes to kill a million people in the first hour of the invasion. All we can do with NK now is to attempt to negotiate, no matter how absurd their demands, and impotently whine at them to please play nice. It was to prevent Hussein from attaining this near invulnerability that we invaded Iraq.

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Now THAT'S irony...and chutzput Shocked

....First of all, you can just reverse the countries in your last paragraph, and it certainly rings true, because we certainly know what the U.S. has done already. And secondly, you seem to think it's alright for YOU to visit other people's mind, but not me. But hey...that alright with me... Cool

..Peace my Brother.

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booman2 wrote:

Now THAT'S irony...and chutzput ....First of all, you can just reverse the countries in your last paragraph, and it certainly rings true, because we certainly know what the U.S. has done already.

The US has had nuclear weapons for decades and not used them since WW2. The US, the old Soviet Union, and China all pursue risk averse policies, as do most nations. The assertion is not that no one may possess WMD, only that of all the entities who will seek them, a few at the extreme evil-nuts end of the spectrum may not.

booman2 wrote:

And secondly, you seem to think it's alright for YOU to visit other people's mind, but not me. But hey...that alright with me... ..Peace my Brother.

When did I ascribe motives to someone? You are simply losing the argument and retreating.

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Is it Possible to "Just Be Yourself"?

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