Just Be Yourself

That's what they always tell us nowadays. Be yourself and you'll be fine! Follow your heart!

Sounds great and lovely, right?

But for crying out loud, what does that even mean? To "be yourself"? Maybe it's just me, but it seems to just be a feel good "do what makes you happy" saying.
I mean, you really can't be anyone else except you. And what inherent value does "being yourself" really have?

I mean you're going to be you. You can try to be someone else but in the end you'll still be you just with some surface appearance of them.

And "follow your heart"?
The heart is deceitful above all things. If you don't believe that, just think how many times your friends have "fallen in love" with their boyfriends or girlfriends, only to break up a couple weeks later and date somebody else. Their excuse for this, honestly, extremely shallow behavior, is that they're following their hearts.

Good job, Hearts.

There are a ton of other similar phrases. "Do what feels right" for example.

I think all those sorts of advice are confusing and unhelpful at best. Maybe even harmful and deceptive.

Maybe next time you advise your friend to be herself, think twice. Maybe instead you should advise her to try to be the person she wants to be. Have her think of how the nicest and most awesome girl she can make up would act.

Maybe don't advise your friends to follow their hearts and do what feels right and makes them happy.
Some times doing the best thing is horrendously hard and you feel freakin horrible afterwards. But you'll look back some day and realize it was worth it.
So tell them to do what they think is right.

That's what I think. Maybe I explained what I think very badly. Ask me to clarify! Maybe you disagree. Tell me why! Maybe you'd like to add to what I said, mention some similar phrases. Let me know! Comment below :)

Or, if you're on twitter, tweet #justbeyourself and I'll check it out. (My twitter username is @stormmariewhite... creative, I know)
Or post on my new facebook page.. 
Or email me.. storm.marie.white@gmail.com
Or google+ me.. just search "Storm White" and I should come up.

Yes, I'm pretty much everywhere. Have fun stalking me, guys. ;P

And here's a lovely song by Mree that partially inspired this post :)