Be yourself - what a beautiful myth…

A difficult story in three parts, ending in a "What to do".

1.   Crystal - clear I

The human spirit is like a two-horse chariot. One of the horses pushes up, towards ideas and passion. The second draws us down to earth, towards physical needs and pleasures. To harness these divergent needs and bring harmony, there is a third element in the chariot–a coachman (mind/reason). Each of the elements separately or one’s advantage over the others is a disaster. Harmony requires constant effort. The author of this intuitive metaphor of a vibrating soul and humanity is... Plato. He discovered it over 2,300 years ago (alleged dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus).

Quite recently, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman in the book Thinking, Fast and Slow presents the experimentally proven concept of two scenarios of human thinking. They are present constantly and simultaneously in all of us and they constantly compete. One of the chapters of the book is actually called "Two selves". Other modern research also points out the constant internal disputes of our self. From everyday ?what to do now and why”, to long-term ?whom to be and how to live” (e.g. an accountant or a rally driver?). Kahneman and other modern brain researchers no longer have to resort to the concept of soul and metaphors. They prove it experimentally, in accordance with the principles of scientific research.

Along the way, we have, for example, the Upanishads, from a different culture (Vedic philosophy, older than Plato) with a description of a man typified as... chariot-coachman-reins-horses, with very fragile stability, which requires constant attention and humility. We also have the well-known concepts of Freud and Jung, which, although weakly based on scientific foundations (to put it mildly) and often quite mystical, bring a similar message: each person is a set of equal contradictions that constantly compete with each other. And we don't even realize many of these "internal disputes". We usually don’t seek this knowledge, although it can be done, even without referring to mysticism, on your own and with the help of others. We also have Kant with his attempt to objectify internal moral dilemmas, bring them to a unified interpretation independent of individual vision and the final, beautiful motto: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. An unsuccessful attempt, which is important and worth remembering. In the end, everyone makes their own assessments and choices according to personal, variable and circumstances-dependent criteria.

What's more, almost all of us use the metaphor of a constant battle between "heart and reason", which suggests contradictory actions. So, for several thousand years, we have known very well that each of us is torn apart by contradictory motives and every now and then we make a choice between them, more or less consciously and based on limited data. For some less, for others more so, but our heads are spinning. We have it embedded in the system. Well, that is the system. We are not perfectly coherent, nor consistent, nor purely logical.

Let me add, if I may, that it's all about people considered healthy, so as not to abuse the vague and too evaluative word - normal (because what does normal mean, anyway?). It is about you, me, all the people around us. So we know well that there is no such thing as a crystal clear profile of the individual (I), who always behaves the same way in identical situations, fully-aware of it. Moreover, it can be perfectly defined once and for all. We know this by approaching the issue intuitively based on observation of behaviour (Plato, the Upanishads), scientifically (Kahneman and others, brain research), or even from the religious/mystical description of a man (in the Bible and other books considered sacred, a man is a rather complex being). In formally identical situations, we make different decisions and believe that we are still ourselves....

And now, we’re in for a surprise. What is one of the most fashionable slogan from motivators, guide books and social media today?

?BE YOURSELF!”

But who, exactly? What does this mean from the point of view of practice, that is myriads of everyday specific behaviours? Which of Plato's chariot horses is being "yourself"? Or is it the coachman? The angel onyour left shoulder or the devil on the right one? And since we are a metaphorically changing sum of various elements, is being ourselves anything else but variable and ambiguous, requiring our constant attention, as Plato has already pointed out? Shouldn't these holy books be guides for the religious people, on how to deal with this constant struggle of antagonisms in our heads?

Are there any statistically repetitive and preferable behaviours, the existence of which we don't realize, maybe? How to find out about it: by yourself, or is it better to ask the observers? Are there any limits to being yourself? For example, resulting from taking into account the well-being, feelings, and needs of other people? Are these boundaries universal or different for everyone? And if they are different, then... you must first recognize your own. But how? By yourself, or is it better to ask observers? And how to define this well-being or feelings and needs of other people? Each of them individually, because each of them is an equally separate island like we are, or on average, because it is difficult to comprehend thousands of people around us?

What if being yourself is just doing what you want at a given time without paying attention to anything or anyone? Such an interpretation fits well in the bon mot of the title. All the more so as we often hear the appeals not to pay attention to others, let them say what they want. Here, we can find support in another extremely popular, but equally vague slogan "Think with your heart! Act intuitively!".

Well, a pretty naturalistic example to start with: breaking winds in the presence of others – is it being yourself (unconstrained by the mask of the convention realization of the natural and healthy needs of the body), or being rude (so we limit our natural needs with the mentioned conventions, negative for the body and personal freedom). Is the example too strong? Okay, I'll add something lighter, but just as real. If the natural trait of your personality is having problems listening to other people [any other character trait would do here], then being yourself would mean continuing such behaviour, even if it ruins your relationships and effectiveness at work? Is it perhaps worth learning how to spend time listening, even though it is beyond that natural (?) being yourself?

It’s a pretty good series of questions in the two paragraphs above, I believe.

"Be yourself!" is almost a Holy Grail of Facebook, LinkedIn, professional and amateur motivational speakers. Every now and then someone posts the slogan and see the “likes” increase. For one thing, a number of those who call for it actually believe the message. I do not doubt their good intentions (though not all of them). Also, this topic is just as smooth and as vague, something like bad bosses (psychopaths!), global corporations (bloodsuckers!) or ruthless recruiters (zero-empathic zombies!).

"Be yourself!".And then what? Then it will all be good, the sky will open, you will lead a happy life. Magic will happen. From day today, without effort. The latter is probably the most important default message. Another thing is how many of those calling for being yourself... actually are themselves every day, which also means on social networks. Well, let me leave such a case analysis for a MA and Ph.D. thesis.

Where does my sarcasm come from? Well, it’s because for the vast majority the slogan is nothing more but a slogan. No action. And then, it is supposed to be like a horse in a famous old encyclopaedia by Benedict Chmielowski – “horse is what it is and everyone can see what a horse is”. So there is nothing to describe because for everyone it’s the same and it’s obvious. Horses, however, are very different and not the same for everyone. And the encyclopaedia dates back the mid-eighteenth century... Enthusiasts of the title slogan "Be yourself" in a naive version probably believe that being yourself is some obvious natural state, nothing there to deal with. As in the TV ad - you were not yourself, you eat a nut bar and boom! You’re finally yourself.

By now we are already beginning to connect the dots and we feel that the title appeal is perhaps trendy, but rather naive. It has the same value as "Do the right thing!", "Do what you have to do!" or "Marry the right woman" (a true one – that’s a quote from our Polish Internet guru...).

THE CONCLUSION - We usually have a vague idea of what it means to be ourselves in practice; that is, in your own daily specific behaviours, not general declarations.

Well, but simply saying that life is complicated and that such a nice slogan is almost useless is not enough. Since it is so popular, let's go further and decompose it into prime factors and find something useful for yourself. Something you can use to start doing concrete and useful things.

2.   Default assumptions of the "Be yourself!" slogan

We say "Be yourself", but we mean something else. Something much closer. By default, we refer to a bad past and present, rather than a specific future.

The underlying course of thinking is:

- bad environment (parents, teachers, corporations, bosses, colleagues, aliens, plumbers...) forces us to pretend to be someone else, to put on a mask every day. Like a form of modern slavery, the cause of which lies outside. "They" are to blame, not us

- break these chains and it will all be good, evil will disappear, you will start to fully breathe (finally!).

The issue number one, that is the masks I-at-work-I-at-home, has already been discussed in the article with the significant title "Are there two of us, or am I on my own?"(Link). I encourage everyone to read it. To put it mildly, I was quite sceptical about the pleasant and reassuring thesis that at work I am the way I have to be (it’s the kind of work, you see...) and at home, it is the real me. Both are real, and statistically, the first one is even more real, because for a longer time and with exposure to many more people. Of course, we are all subject to the pressure of environment, family or culture. Today, however, this is not an oppressive pressure. We have enough freedom and possibilities to decide for ourselves on our behaviour, appearance, lifestyle, and work, especially as an adult independent man of his own. And that's probably who you are: an adult, independent, on your own, living in a free country.

CONCLUSION - you say "Be yourself", but you think "Stop pretending" and these are two different things

It’s like mixing apples and oranges. The first appeal refers to a continuous state in the future, and the second to a single act of will based on an assessment of the past and present. Being yourself and stopping pretending are two different things. Stop pretending means entering the starting field. Being yourself is a continuation of the "game" with very complex, often unclear rules and changes that vary over time. We usually do not know these principles and it is worth learning them.

If you consciously and deliberately put on masks every day, that is you consciously and deliberately deceive others and yourself, then taking off such masks is worth considering. Unless you feel more comfortable with it, and you like complaining in the company. At the same time, it is good to remember that after removing the masks, one crystal-clear person is not yet discovered (let me remind you - Plato, Kahneman, etc.) but only now we are beginning self-reflection and analysis of many internal opposing scenarios of our behaviours. Making choices and taking full responsibility for them.

What to do about it? OK, I’ve stopped pretending consciously, that is I’ve given up specific forms of behaviours and what next? I will seemingly change the subject here, just for a moment. A great example can be found in another area of human activity. A process that perfectly captures the essence of the "being yourself" problem. We know it well, but we don't relate that knowledge to ourselves.

We have long known the cases when society is ruled by a tyrant (a man or a system). Tyrants can be objectively evil because they do harm. Including killing. Tyrants take away people's freedom of choice and impose on others how to live, what to do and what is not allowed. Also, they do it in the name of their own vision and terrifying ideologies. The tyrant's presence creates an opposition that wants to deprive him of power. The opposition's slogans are simple: stop tyranny and restore freedom. At this stage, the world is simple and this simplicity unites all oppositionists. The tyrant is evil, and when we get rid of this evil, then... (?). At the stage of fighting against tyranny exists a preconception that after its removal there will be freedom and all will be fine. That is because we are good people compared to the tyrant, so things will happen almost automatically.

And what really happens after the tyrant is removed? This history has been repeating itself for thousands of years. It is happening even now, right before our eyes. Just look outside the window or turn on the Internet/TV to a national section. What has happened in Poland after overthrowing the dictatorship of the previous ideology? Overnight, it turned out that the opposition, up till then united around the simple slogan "Let's be free!" is, however, extremely divided and has very different concepts of this freedom and its effects on citizens. These concepts are extremely different in every aspect of life, whether family, social or business. What's more, it turns out that nothing happens by itself and that this freedom requires huge and continuous effort every day, in an environment of disputes and cooperation of people of opposite ideas, be it about law, economics, education, defence, interpersonal communication, etc. Let me repeat it – everyday, continuously and without end; everything flows, which the ancient people already knew. It turned out that the victory of freedom (how differently understood by everyone) was not the culmination of the work; in fact, instead of the final, it was the beginning of a completely new road. This was not the end field of the game, but a starting one.

A drastic example, unfortunately: the Arab Spring and removal of the dictators in Libya and several other countries, or the civil war in Syria. The dictators were truly cruel and they can't be pitied. Has life automatically and immediately become easier after getting rid of them? In some countries it has even worsened, I'm afraid. And one of the reasons is the inability to agree with those who were seemingly united in the resistance against the dictator.

How does this relate to the title slogan "Be yourself!"? Practically 1:1. Getting rid of the literal tyrant and the metaphorical one (pretending and masks) is an act after which it all starts. And then, you either pass this exam, like we seem to have initially passed it in Poland, or you miss your chance because there is no idea and no will to continue cooperation and work on opposing concepts (the Arab Spring or the current inciting of half of Poles against the other half...).

3.   What to do?

I have good news. We do know the answer to one of the key questions asked earlier. Let me remind you: "Maybe there are some statistically repeatable and preferable behaviours?" Although we are a battle of the opposites and we do not always behave the same way, it is not a pure lottery, chaos or white noise. There is a centre of gravity for our preferences and the resulting behaviours. Personality surveys, such as Extended DISC, MBTI, Hogan, Zenger Folkman, Gallup, Facet 5, Insights, Big Five (PMO) attempt to measure it better or worse. There is a number of others that are, however, much more scientific, and therefore much harder to be applied for your own use, unfortunately. We can do anything, but in standard everyday conditions the probabilities of our individual behaviours are different and among them, there are those quite likely ones (repetitive and therefore predictable).

I have already described it in the article "Morgan Freeman and pierogi..." (link) and in the book. Myself, I have served as a guinea pig presenting my typical behaviour during lunch. I read the menu, I have a choice of a dozen or so dishes, and finally... 7 out of 10 cases I choose dumplings (pierogi). In my opinion, I make equal choices and each time I make a separate decision, that is "look how complicated I am". In the eyes of an external observer, I'm not that complicated anymore. It turns out that this observer... knows more about me than I do. He doesn't care what's on my mind. For him, it's important that 7 out of 10 choices are pierogi. So he can predict my behaviour with quite high probability. Higher than I can do myself (until I discovered this pierogi syndrome).

This is the basis of the frequently-quoted Facebook algorithm for determining our preferences. An analysis of thousands of likes (with their consent) has allowed Facebook to develop a program that predicts their behaviour with a greater probability than the closest life partner can. How many “likes” by a single person is enough to achieve such forecast accuracy? About 300 as we heard; this is nothing in the scale of social media.

I’m not writing about it, however, to scare you away with Big Brother and AI (this is what I deal with in other articles). I am writing about this because two important conclusions come from both examples above.

The first one can be summed by the slogan "Find your pierogi!", that is your own preferred and statistically repetitive behaviours in specific life situations and interactions with people. This requires systematic self-reflection: one that is not a general (pseudo) philosophy of "How to live?", but a tangible algorithm/process that disciplines our thinking and reasoning.

The second conclusion: a lot of reliable knowledge about us is outside of us. Simply reach out and face the thoughts resulting from self-reflection. Both modes of conduct are clearly presented in the first half of my book Are you the one who knocks? You can also read articles linked to my profile (in English) or my website (in Polish).

By doing this systematic work overtime, we will begin to get to know the centre of gravity of our own preferred behaviours. That is to understand what our ‘being ourselves’ practically IS. Do you think that you already have such knowledge about yourself and it’s been reliably verified by analysing the behaviours, not intentions and your own imagination (menu vs pierogi)? Also, verified by external observers and measurable objective tools? If so, congratulations! You belong to a significant minority of the population. But... think again before you answer, please. It’s worth it.

One more fundamental question remains: what is all this for? Why bother?

In my opinion, this is what gives us a real sense of "being ourselves", makes us recognize and partly control our behaviour and emotions. This, in turn, can help us choose and shape an environment/work that coincides with our values and the most common and preferred behaviours; which is something very practical and desirable.

Life will not be easier and simpler then. It’s a slave's life that is simple and decisively easy. Decide for yourself what you prefer. I would venture to say that life is becoming even more complicated. But quite a lot of people are ready to call this existence life and feel that they are alive. They also accept the price they have to pay - daily self-reflection, conscious making difficult choices, taking personal responsibility, accepting the consequences; for there is always a price and consequences. For some, such a life is a reward in itself, but for others - a punishment. Let's not forget that statistically Poles prefer... a soft tyranny than a full set of freedom + responsibility (Jacek Santorski described the results of adequate research in a very interesting way). So, a little "I will be myself, but will someone tell me what to do, how to live and take responsibility?"...

SUMMARY - being yourself is a heavy burden and continuous self-reflection work on uncertain and incomplete data, not a single act of will and a declaration on Facebook.

IN LITERATURE - "We know as much about ourselves as we have been tested" by Wis?awa Szymborska, Noble Prize winner. You can double-check yourself, fortunately.