Got Personality?

If I ever find that lousy rotten scoundrel that coined the phrase:  ‘Just be yourself’, I’m going to wring his bloody neck. If that’s not enough to end his miserable life, I’m going to trample his sorry hide into chunky cat-food with my best pair of spiky boots and feed his remains to my feisty felines. On second thoughts, my felines are too good for that. Better toss the remnants in the garbage disposal and hit play while I chuckle maniacally.

Short of sounding like a serial psychopath, I better explain why I’m hate-mongering on this phrase and its ‘creator’ before the men in white jackets come to take me away. I know it’s hard to pinpoint the exact origin of the phrase, but for the simple purpose of directing my rage filled anger onto it, I have chosen to believe it was a smelly grotesque man that created it. This…thing that passes as a human being… just by coming up with this phrase, has completely and utterly obliterated the self esteem of millions of susceptible people worldwide (that’s practically personality-cide if you ask me. He should be tried for war crimes and hung by his toes under a spiky pit of starving, light sabre wielding piranhas). Without self-esteem you might as well chuck out the rest of the character. What empty shells that remains of the souls can be sown together into fashionable new-age necklaces for free spirits to wear (ironically), for they have no other use anymore.

Let me elaborate. First of all, if we are to always just be ourselves then technically we should pass through life with the qualities of either a gibbering drooling toddler, or a squirming ovum-seeking tadpole, depending on what school of thought you choose to believe in. Babies don’t have a real personality you may ask? So when do we develop a personality? Some say pre-puberty, others say during, while others even hint at adolescence. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is this sorry excuse of a phrase was created, and then swiftly repeated worldwide as the number one social advice ever given because it’s easier than having to think of a real solution.  One global chain-reaction later and we have millions brainwashed into thinking that they must just be themselves whenever they want to make an impression, whether they’re on a date, in an interview, or making new friends. Failure to comply with social standards results in a crumbled confidence, self–judgment, guilt, etc. Of course the feelgood Hollywood movies stressing this pseudo-ideaology as the primary moral of many of their plots doesn’t help either. Basically, the consequence of all this is people are now afraid of how other people will judge them if they suddenly changed their personality. If they act differently than how they are expected to, others will say “Oh he’s just pretending to be like that,” or, “Oh she’s just going through a phase.” These judgments are the cause of why people are afraid to change their personality or behave differently to how they normally would in certain situations.

A friend once told me: you judge yourself by how you think people see you, i.e., through other people’s eyes your character is shaped via your perception of what you think they see in you. Therefore just based on that, your character is in a constantly changing state. Every time you meet someone new, a piece of that person stays with you, to modify your character in some way; Every time you go through a significant experience, parts of it stick with you, moulding you into a new form, complete with memories and a fresh outlook on life.

On further inspection, the mystery deepens even further. On the surface it appears that a human has only one personality. But in reality, it is composed of a multitude of characters, a set of files stored in a mental cabinet, some almost identical, others totally different from one another. You have a ‘record’, ready to be pulled out, for each and every person in your life, and each and every significant event in your life. Not only that, you also have a set for every combination of people you are with, plus every combination of people and events...and the list goes on. So if you are with your best friend, you pull out the character called ‘with best friend’ and activate it. If you are with another friend at the same time, you have a separate file for that. If you are with your friends on holiday...yet another file. The point being made here, which I’m sure you’ve noticed at one time or the other, is that you are never truly the same person when you are with different people.  You can’t be because you and your friend adapted your personalities around each other from the moment you met. You created a blank new file and started mentally writing into it as you bonded. Not only that, but all your files are constantly going through automatic updates as time passes (spoken like a true I.T. technician).  So trying to be yourself all the time just to please society is impossible. Instead, why not accept the fact that you can choose to be a different person whenever you want to. Existing as the same person is dull, tedious, and a demolisher of self esteem and confidence. It’s as if you’re creating all your character records to be near identical with a copy/paste function for life. Where’s the fun in that?

Some would argue that being yourself means staying true to your base character. It means not listening to the pressures of conformity and the strain of others demanding that you’re not good enough the way you are. There is a good point to be had here, but it has been warped behind its true meaning. It doesn’t mean that you should stay as you are no matter what peer pressure and bad advice whispers in your ear. It means if you want to change something about yourself, do it for your own reasons and not for others. If you recognize a flaw in your character that you want altered, then by all means do so, but do so for the right cause. If someone is quiet and hides in the shadows, then how does she expect to meet new people, make friends, go out on dates? If someone only hangs out with his male friends all day, lives like a slob and acts like a brute, and then complains about his non-existent love-life, who should he blame? Should these people continue to just be themselves? Should they continue the way they are, forever failing at their goals and wasting their life, just because some lazy person gave them the lazy advice that they are beautiful the way they are and shouldn’t let others change them? Don’t expect the rest of the world to shape itself around you while you sit on the couch and moan about how it doesn’t like you. If you want to accomplish anything on this planet, you have to adapt around its rules and make them work in your favour.

But I still believe somewhat in this base character (the infamous be yourself character). It does exist, but it should be the one activated when you are by yourself, with no one’s judgment to inhibit or interfere with your mind except for your own. Instead of toiling on a daily basis in order to proudly display this true character for the entire world to see, why not keep this one to yourself, to do with what you wish. All humans should be entitled to at least one personality to play with without having the nuisance of a flock of rolling eyes and clicking tongues criticizing their every action. There is no guilt for keeping this personality private, contrary to what people tell you.

Let us recognize the fact that we have within us a wide assortment of personalities that we can tap into at any time. We don’t even have to try very hard. We just shouldn’t slam the door at our potential when it visits our doorstep, just because we are afraid of what others would say about us. It may seem like hard work to actually change but it’s really our own resistance that’s setting up all the mental blockades. If we accept that and dissolve the resistance, the way becomes clear.

It was Rita Mae Brown who said: “I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” Right! Has anybody seen a filthy no-good phrase-coining scumbag? I have a score to settle with him!