We are often told that the best way to live your life is to be yourself, to be genuine to who you are. What this translates to is living in accordance with your values, which will facilitate a clear conscience. Living with a clear conscience is living in freedom, and that freedom is often what people are really referring to when they talk about being yourself. This means who you are fundamentally hinges upon your values - which is simply what you value most in life. Life can't be meaningless if you choose to find value in something; but regardless of how meaningful it is, does being yourself really lead to the best way of living your life?

Being yourself means being confident and comfortable with who you are

Deep satisfaction with who you are is rooted in an assurance that you are living the life you know you were meant to live. Confidence about your life can only come from putting in the effort to figure out where you want to be, then charting and following that course to get you there. Lives are forged, not discovered. So many people think that being yourself comes down to flaunting and taking pride in the personality you have. But your personality is something that you didn't even choose. You should never take pride in the things you can't control, and this includes your personality. At best such things are a blessing, but you should never take them for granted because you could lose those blessings at any given moment. But what you can take pride in is the work you accomplish and what you strive to create. Even though your personality is something that you have little control over, it isn't something that fully defines you - the more important part of what defines you are your actions, something you do indeed have complete control over. So, the confidence and comfort of who you are shouldn't come from things that were bestowed upon you for your sheer existence on planet earth. That confidence and comfort should come from taking steps every day towards a position that you’ll be proud to be in.

What does it mean to be genuine?

You can't help but be yourself, but by no means should the person you are today be the pinnacle of your existence just because it's genuine. We lose the meaning of being genuine because we think that if we live out our daily lives as normal that that's somehow being genuine. But that isn't being genuine, it's just being and there's a huge gap between the two. Being is just an excuse not to create lasting change in your life. Being genuine means knowing yourself and letting your values guide your life. It's not living in accordance of the whims and desires of your heart but doing what you know is right regardless of whether or not you feel like it. Being genuine isn't as much a matter of what you do, it's more a matter of what you do as a means of becoming who you believe you were meant to be. You shouldn't need to ask yourself whether every action you take is genuine; there should come a point where the right things to do are no longer principles, but rather they're instincts. You shouldn't do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, but you should do it because you wouldn't feel as if you were being genuine to who you are if you didn't do that right thing. Your values need to be this automatic for you to come off as genuine. If you're not doing something with genuine intent, is it worth doing? If your intent isn’t genuine, you'd just be putting on a show behind some masquerade - this is something that the people you interact with can see through and will feel as if they can't relate to your or trust you. The crazy thing about being genuine is that when you show your genuine self, it brings out the genuineness in those people you interact with. Being genuine, like almost any emotion we exhibit, is contagious. Therefore, honesty is always the best approach. You feel as if you have nothing to hide, because you don't; you have a completely clear conscience which is a prerequisite for being genuine. Honesty and living with a clear conscience are why people will reciprocate genuine behavior. So being genuine can be distilled down to having a clear conscience, which is often confused with doing the right thing. They may sound synonymous, but having a clear conscience is doing what you think is right, not what others think or say is right. At its core being genuine means walking the line between casual and genuine vulnerability - not being too open and not being too guarded; but above all it means doing this while caring about people - we don't care how genuine a person is if they don't care about us.

What if someone is just genuinely a bad person?

We've all come across them at some point in our lives; some people genuinely don't care about the well-being of anyone other than maybe themselves. Their values are so skewed that they lose touch with reality because they have created a world in their head that doesn't exist. While it's okay to disagree with what it means to be a "good person", it's not alright to lead a life that makes other peoples' lives worse off because of your existence. But whether we like to admit it or not, we each have a dark side that we need to fight so it doesn't gain a footing in our life. Though this sounds easy in principle, delineating between whether you're pressing into the good or bad part of yourself is much harder in practice. The world has debated over "right thing to do" since the beginning of time. Because there was (and still is) no easy answer, society agreed to disagree which lead us to the "consensus" that what each individual thinks is right is fine for society so long as everyone operates within some general guidelines - i.e. laws. This also means what you do shouldn't infringe or impose on someone else's freedom to live their life. So, if someone not only doesn't have someone else's best interest at heart, but also actively seeks to make life worse for others, it wouldn't make sense to justify their actions in the name of "doing something that's genuine". You can never set aside your personal values for the sake of being genuine because living out those values is what makes one genuine in the first place. So, what should you do if you come across someone whose values are malicious? Actions always have and always will speak louder than words - what this practically means is that we need to show them what we think a good life should look like. Whether or not they agree, they'll likely respect you on some level for doing what you think is right, especially when it's no easy to do what you’re doing. Judging them may make you feel better about yourself for a brief instant, but this will create no positive lasting change and is more likely to make things for all parties involved worse. All this is to overcome the obstacle that we can't change anyone, the best we can do is convince them to change themselves. The reality of most peoples' value systems is that they opt for whatever is convenient, not what they think is right. And after living like this for some time they'll start to confuse what is right with what is convenient, which means they don't really stand for anything, and can't be genuine. Given enough time and space we can all convince ourselves through justification that anything we do is morally right, but unless you have a consistent set of values, we could all too easily become a "genuinely bad" person in the blink of an eye. If someone is indeed a genuinely bad person, you need to realize that you are no better or worse than them, and treat them genuinely, just like you would anyone else. We should do this because it's not right to selectively exemplify our values - this is when it's hardest but counts the most.

Which part of yourself should you embrace?

It would be an over simplification to say that you should only embrace the admirable parts of yourself. It's all too easy to be idealistic about who you are and blind yourself to faults that you inevitably have - no one is perfect. Because of this the best place to start is with your insecurities. What don't you feel like doing? Out of those things, what would help you? For example, instead of thinking that you're just genuinely bad at public speaking and that you weren't meant to talk in front of people, think that it's a genuine fear that everyone has and that you should face. If you don't face these fears, you're hiding from yourself and therefore limiting who you can become. But you may think that I'll never have to give a speech in my life, and to that I could argue, but it's not about whether or not you would ever give a speech - it's really about the principles of breaking your fears so that you can internalize the concept that you're capable of almost anything that you set your mind to. There is great power in this revelation; but don't just be and do whatever you feel like doing because you suddenly realize that you can. Our feelings rarely guide us to where we should be; instead of following your feelings, do whatever is necessary to actualize your aspirations. Have a vision for your life and let everything you do in the present feed into becoming that person. This process should never stop. We all have some idea of what we should do, what's right or wrong in the moment; and yet so few of us act on those beliefs. You need to embrace, develop and cultivate your beliefs because ultimately that's what defines who you are. And if who you are is just some ideas haphazardly thrown together, many people will have trouble respecting you. In short, embrace your fears then destroy them for they are the only things that are holding you back. When you're facing your fears at times you'll feel like a fraud, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're not being genuine. Being genuine has everything to do with your beliefs and aspirations and has almost nothing to do with your feelings. You will constantly be changing, so when you're trying to figure out which part of yourself to be genuine to focus on who you want to become instead. If you don't have a clue who you want to become, drop everything and figure it out. Who you want to become should be a clear vision of where your values will take you, not necessarily a career. Use that vision to guide your life. But if you hold on to your fears, you're preventing yourself from growing because you're too attached to who you were in the past. The past was a set of lessons that you can live out in the present, so the future doesn't mirror your history.

Being yourself doesn't mean being unique

So many people get caught up in trying to be original; they think that they must spend their time thinking of something that no one else has ever thought of before. It's as if this result will somehow provide them with the validation for making use of their existence on planet earth. But after spending all this time trying to find the one thing that they think will make and define them, they'll likely come to realize that with all the people in the world they're hard pressed to do something or think of an idea that is completely and entirely new. Having said that, it can and has been done - but if you look at the people doing those amazing new things, they aren't looking to be unique, they're looking to do something better than anyone has done it before. They look at things they're familiar with in ways no one else has before. They aren't so pretentious to think that they can see something everyone else is missing, but rather they press into their world of expertise and try to expand it. Often being creative means dealing with constraints; it's all too easy to be completely overwhelmed by the myriad of possibilities out in a boundless universe - such thoughts will likely cripple creativity. This means that there is some truth to the adage that good artists create and great artists copy. Remember there is no shame of standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before you. Besides that, you shouldn't strive to be unique as this desire is purely self-serving and will therefore rarely stand on its own. Instead, seek to be exceptional and steer away from the trap of being original. We end up changing who we are when we try to preserve it anyway, so there's really no point in trying to be original when what's original today will be pedestrian tomorrow. We as humans are fluid beings and we weren't meant to be hold on to one point in history as if it meant everything. The only thing that means everything is the moment that you're living right now, and that's what part of yourself you should embrace, the part that's here and now.

You're the only one who truly knows what it means to be yourself

The world can tell you how to behave, what you should look like, and who you should spend your time with - but you can choose whether to listen. Even though some people may tell you what they think is best, just know that all they're giving you is an opinion and you should never let other people's opinions shape your life without thoroughly evaluating them. Because after doing this enough the life you're living will no longer your vision but theirs, which won't have your best interests at heart because you're the only one who truly knows what they are. And if you don't have a clue what your best interests look like, it's your duty to find out if you want a life any better than the one you have now. But what this doesn't mean is that you must find "find yourself" before you can do anything worthwhile. Firstly, finding yourself implies that there is a moment or life event that can reveal something deeply insightful that will completely transform your life. While I'm not denying the possibility of the existence of such an event, it's the disproportional weight that we place on the probability of such an event occurring that's the problem. In other words, you shouldn't believe with such certainty that moment will happen to you and put your entire life hold while waiting for that time to come. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a poor strategy in life. Be open to such a revelation, but don't count on it. You can't afford to wait for someone or something to give you permission or assurance. When it comes to "finding yourself", there will be no singularity in which everything will make sense because we are always changing and therefore the lens in which we look at the world must also always be changing so we can try to make sense of it all. It takes time and space to answer intentional questions, but time and space alone won't get you anywhere - you must make use of that time and space. Don't fall into the trap of putting in virtually no effort and expecting something to come out of it. But during this quest to "find one's self" we often put the cart before the horse. You can't find yourself before you determine your values. Without values how can you know who you are? So, getting to know yourself means defining your values for yourself - not letting anyone else do it for you.

What's the trap?

Being yourself is often synonymous for telling people that they're fine the way they are, and they don't need to work on improving themselves. The trap here is that these same people tell you to celebrate who you are. But you can't take pride in being yourself if you don't do anything to develop the person that you are. To find a legitimate source of satisfaction in who you are, question what you stand for. Have a vision for your life and who you want to become. Then every day live in accordance with that vision and make it a reality. But in conjunction with this know that things can and undoubtedly will change, and you just need to learn how to adapt while maintaining a positive trajectory. The idea of who you are is fluid and will change as life changes around you. This isn't bad, everything will evolve with time, but in addition to being intentional about how you mold yourself, protect who you are from inadvertently changing to conform with the subtle nudges or sharp jabs of society. The idea of who you are is something that you need to protect, it will change - it's just a matter of how. Before you get too protective of who you are, think about who you are right now. How did you even become who you are today? If you didn't intentionally chart your course to where you are now, life just tossed you around and who you are is a result of those chance events and circumstances. The random factor won't suddenly disappear just because you have a plan, but a plan will give you the vision to see how those circumstances and random life events can fit into your life so that you'll use them to your advantage. You'll only make happen what we believe is possible, so do everything you can to expand your beliefs of what you're capable of because we all are capable of much more than we can imagine. But focusing too much on being yourself can curtail your capabilities and hinder you from becoming who you were meant to be. You show your true self when you aren't trying to prove something, aren’t attempting to be someone you're not, or aren’t putting on a show; you're just authentically you in those moments because there is nothing but who you are to hide behind. Another trap of being yourself is holding on to who you were to portray who you are. Holding on to the past stops the future form becoming any better. Your default path needs to be growth, and growth comes from a deep desire to be a better person today than you were yesterday. Growth means always learning what better means in the context of your life, and what that idea looks like actualized. There is more freedom than you can imagine found through being genuine. You don't need to "figure out who you are" before you can be both authentic and genuine - all you need to do is clarify your values and press into the positive aspects of yourself while purging the negative. Living this out day after day, no matter what, is what it takes to be genuine. Being genuine isn't something that you can fake, being genuine is determining a consistent standard to measure yourself against and striving towards that measurement because you're in love with progress.