'Be who you are' or 'Be who you want to be'

[quiethumir]

Which one of these do you believe in and explain your reasoning

[vitalfalcon]

Both.

Be yourself, but always be challenging yourself and transforming yourself into who you want to be. Don't pretend that you are someone that you're not, but develop the qualities in yourself that you want to improve on.

For instance, let's say you want to be a popular person. It would be silly for you to go out and act like you know everyone and that everyone knows you..it'd be pretentious. But if you start developing skills on meeting people and maintaining relationships, then you'll start to transform into someone popular.

Get it?

[MariconesUnited]

Be who you are. Explore why you want to be someone or something else. If you find, after much reflexion, that the reasons are worthy, then be who you want to be. But be yourself at all times. It keeps you balanced

[Beingist]

Be Who (or What) You are.

You can't really (meaning sincerely or authentically) be anything else.

[MariconesUnited]

Originally Posted by Beingist

Be Who (or What) You are.

You can't really (meaning sincerely or authentically) be anything else.

Studying acting is showing me that who you are is a lot larger than what we tend to think it is. So maybe...Be who you want to be within who you are

[Beingist]

Originally Posted by MariconesUnited

Studying acting is showing me that who you are is a lot larger than what we tend to think it is. So maybe...Be who you want to be within who you are

I can understand this, but never aspiring to acting, I wouldn't have the foggiest idea how this is done.

But indeed, Who You are IS a lot larger than what one could possibly think it is.

[James81]

The question I ask is who are you? I mean, how exactly do you know who you are?

I assert that "who you are" is really just a collection of beliefs and values that you were taught as a child. And it feels authentic to you because you were too young to realize that you were forming an identity out of those beliefs and values.

And I assert that when you become aware of that one simple truth, you will free yourself to choose who you want to be and you'll realize that you can forge your own beliefs, values, and identity.

[Beingist]

Originally Posted by James81

The question I ask is who are you? I mean, how exactly do you know who you are?

You don't know Who You are. You can't know. All you can do is BE Who You are.

The set of beliefs one has about oneself is the very thing that prevents a person from really being Who They are.

[MariconesUnited]

Originally Posted by James81

The question I ask is who are you? I mean, how exactly do you know who you are?

I check my ID cards!

Sorry...Just thought this place could use some humor

[RonSouther]

Be who you are...a "seed" capable of becoming all you can be, according to your natural talents, desires and longings. Find your gifts, express yourself through them, making the world a better place when you leave it.

If you haven't created for the betterment of life then you haven't lived.

Man is the conscious hand of nature.

[Lethalmind]

Be who you want to be. Follow your dreams, and if you're in alignment with yourself you'll naturally be yourself, so there's no need to 'be who you are.'

'Being who you are' is too black and white. Pin down exactly who you are. It's impossible and constantly changing.

[ButterflyWoman]

Be who you are, while becoming what you want to be, and keep doing that indefinitely.

[Rimuel]

One of Strengthfinder's premises about identity is "as you grow, you become more of who you already are."

I agree with this to an extent. There are certain parts of your identity that don't change; certain activities that you engage in will always bring you pleasure or pain, and you are almost always attracted (non-sexual connotation here) to certain people more than others.

The idea then, is to identify those parts of yourself that are likely to be permanent, and become 'who you want to be' in a way that is consistent with those parts of yourself. In other words, become who you want to be while maintaining who you already are.

For example, I dislike the idea of lying to other people in order to get them to buy something. (From where I'm at, many people seems to have no problem with that philosophy.) Therefore, I will never go into sales as long as I perceive that the prospective company uses such underhanded tactics. This is an integral part of me; I can never lie to other people in such ways.

This ethic of mine once led me to a situation like this:

-House phone rings. I pick up, annoying friend of mom's called.-

Mom: Tell her I'm not around!
Me (on the phone): Umm..my mom said she's not around.


The difficulty lies in determining what qualities are enduring and what qualities are not. This would probably take a lifetime's work. My advice, try and change some of your qualities you think are enduring, and if you feel a very strong resistance throughout the experiment (must be sufficiently long), you can be sure that it is an enduring part of yourself.

You can also interview some old people (mid-forties to mid-sixties) to ask them whether there are some parts of their identity that has been on the bandwagon for as long as they remember. This may provide some insights.

There's good reason why certain parts of our identity do not change. If we are 100% malleable and non-differentiated, making choices will very, very complicated. We would have been eaten by other animals by the time we decide to make certain decisions.

[Beingist]

Originally Posted by quiethumir

Which one of these do you believe in and explain your reasoning

<-------- the username should say enough for me

[SunnyDays]

Be who you are but never stop to strive to become the person who you want to be

[AdasA]

Always be who you want to be, because as long as you really want to be someone you become such person and the perception of your position is only perception of yours.
The true acceptance of your self is quite easy as soon as you realize, that in fact you want to be only a bit different from your starting personality or state. Eg. many people want to be a milionaire, but very few succeed. There exists a positive correlation between idea, hard work, education and abilities AND being a rich person, believe me. My point is that you can't really tell that you want to be a milionaire sitting in front of your TV(without idea,plan and EFFORT), because, obviously, realizing a necessity of change is crucial, but action plays fundamental role in changing oneself. What I wanted to say is that you really don't want to be a milionaire, you just dream of being one, but you want to be a bit richer. And all you do is being more efficient at work, spending less, giving up addictions etc. So, in fact, most of us have problem with undertaking proper action to their desire and distinguishing between what we dream of and what we pursue.
Another issue is that being rich is relative. And maybe thats wrong example above, but I hope you got my point.

Adam

[reekah]

Both, as they are human nature and required for wellbeing.

[Canadian]

How about:
Be who you authentically are and remove the additional BS that gets in the way.

[Lifeisamazing]

I don't believe in all this discussion about finding our true self. How can there be such a thing? It's largely determined by our childhood, people we talked to and what we learned. If we want, we can always unlearn those things. Of course, a lot of those things are very difficult to change. But if we truly want, I believe we can.

So everything is about becoming who you want to be. If you are happy with some of the things you are, then you can just be.

[RonSouther]

Originally Posted by Lifeisamazing

I don't believe in all this discussion about finding our true self. How can there be such a thing? It's largely determined by our childhood, people we talked to and what we learned. If we want, we can always unlearn those things. Of course, a lot of those things are very difficult to change. But if we truly want, I believe we can.

So everything is about becoming who you want to be. If you are happy with some of the things you are, then you can just be.

That is how one finds one's true self....remove that which was conditioned into us in our childhood and enjoy be a real human being again....something we haven't enjoyed since we were kids.

[Lifeisamazing]

Originally Posted by RonSouther

That is how one finds one's true self....remove that which was conditioned into us in our childhood and enjoy be a real human being again....something we haven't enjoyed since we were kids.

But is it your "true self"? If you grew up in a different environment, would your true self be different? I think we just learn to be interested in some things and dislike other things because of our experiences throughout our life.