I know I promised you a video in Monday’s post, but I’m still bogged down with a cold courtesy of Project Kayak, and I do not look or sound human. So text it is!
As someone who did an intense tour of duty in the self-help and positive psychology circuit, I’ve probably heard the phrase “Be yourself!” or some such derivative close to a thousand times. And every time I’ve heard it, I’ve reacted with the same degree of puzzlement; if all I have to do to be successful is be myself, then why did I spend $24.95 on the expanded collector’s edition re-release (bound in a hardcover made of real cherry wood and cedar!) of your book?
After years of pondering the significance of such ostensibly vapid and sugary advice, it hit me. These authors (the smart ones, anyhow) aren’t saying “Hey, you! Be yourself! Don’t change a thing!” Rather, they’re compelling you to find the key elements that ARE you (what psychiatrists would call your “substantive qualities”) and embrace them–because you can’t change them.
By way of an example, imagine you are 6 feet, 3 inches tall. This is considered a substantive quality (provided you’ve done most of your growing) because you are unlikely to wake up a week later and find that you have grown or lost a foot. Concrete physical characteristics are not the only substantive qualities, nor are they the most significant.
You have certain personality characteristics that are unlikely to change and can be considered substantive as well. For instance, your sense of humor. You laugh at what you laugh at, you don’t laugh at what you don’t laugh at. Simple.
But in theory, you could change the appearance of your sense of humor if you wanted to. You could forcibly laugh at certain things and not at others in order to better fit in with people around you. And many people who embark on a self-help journey do exactly that, or something similar. But ultimately, it’s a failed strategy.
I, for instance, love Star Trek. It is a substantive quality. The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, the movies–I love it all. I’m quite shameless about my love of Star Trek–I don’t go to conventions or have Star Trek action figures, but I did go to the Star Trek Museum when it was passing through San Diego, and relished an opportunity to sit in the actual chair used on the set of the Original Series. That’s right. The actual chair. Ahem. The point here is that my open love of Star Trek has, at some point or another, probably cost me an opportunity with a woman or two.
But I do not now, nor will I ever hide my love of Star Trek. What is the point of attracting someone into your life only to be forced to continually put of a facade?
By not hiding my love of Star Trek, I have ensured that per force the people I surround myself with don’t have a problem with that. (Granted, an affection for Star Trek is a relatively superficial characteristic by which to discriminate someone, but you get the idea.)
The bottom line is this: figure out what makes you you. Embrace it. Spruce up the rest. In so doing, you will attract the maximum number of people you can meet that actually like you.
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