the bear bag & being yourself

At steph's request, here is a photo of the bag bernie got me :3 looks bigger in the photo than it actually is.

I was thinking again, as I do a lot in my spare time, and I came to the subject of personalities. Common advice given to anyone trying to socialise is that people usually like people with a good personality, right? Eg, if you're a bitch, grouchy, annoying then not many people will want to talk to you or get to know you.

However, also, we are told to "be yourself" and people will like us for who we are.

Does anyone see what I'm getting at now? What if 'yourself' is a bad personality? You can't expect people to like you if you're being yourself and you are naturally an annoying, unlikeable person. Although admittedly if you are an annoying unlikable person you usually wouldn't think of trying to portray yourself as something else because most of the time you don't realise, but that's not the point.

We as humans rarely follow our own advice of "be yourself" though. There are many instances where it would not be in your best interest to be yourself. For instance during an interview for a job, or a university application. If one were to be "be themselves", it would go a little like "Yes, I want a job here, don't ask me any more questions please and just hire me, thanks I'll get to work on monday."
or
"I'm interested in this university because then I can get a degree and don't end up as a bum on the street, and (possibly) because my parents will disown me if I don't. I have no interest in your 80 year history or contributing to your school, just accept me!"

It's not only a 'good personality' that attracts others though... outgoing people are just easier to talk to compared to antisocial, shy ones. so telling a shy person to "be themselves" isn't really going to work if they want to meet new people. sometimes you have to help them break out of their shell and get over their fear of people (not in every case, don't sue me).

Basically the advice to "be yourself" is 50% bs, since nobody follows it to its full extent anyway. I can understand if it's advice not to pretend to be someone else to gain favours, eg. pretending to be rich and successful to get a girlfriend/boyfriend because they will find out and then you're screwed, but apart from that it has next to no merit >> sometimes it's necessary to act a little different, break out of your comfort zone, to change and make yourself a better person. Experiment~

But then again one could argue that if you are willing to experiment and do that in the first place it is in your personality and thus you are being yourself by trying to change yourself. (did that even make sense)

but then that also means that the people pretending to be rich and successful etc are also being themselves because it's part of their personality to be willing to trick others or pretend to be someone they're not... kind of like they have the potential to do those kind of things, it's part of their personality. for example if a girl pretends to be rich, popular to get the guy she wants, but he finds out that she's been lying to him this whole time, he's unlikely to go back to her even if she returns to her 'normal' state ie. being modest because he knows what she's capable of, knows that she could lie to him anytime she wants. Although, someone could argue that people can change... but I think that no matter how much you change, your past is still a part of you and who you are, and definitely who you were. Eventually he could trust her, but nothing will change what she did in the past and the fact that she was capable of doing it.

actually you could just say the whole "be yourself" advice is redundant because no matter what you do you're still do an extent "being yourself" right?

...I'm sure noone is going to understand wtf I just wrote

I'm even more confused now than I was before... I guess what I can say to everyone is really just be what you want to be, noone else can do anything if you pretend to be someone else or not, and if you do it's noone else's fault if you get screwed over either. =P take responsibility for yourself and your actions, cuz noone else is gonna do it for you.

have a nice day~