Essay on the Meaning of Be Yourself

What does it mean to be yourself? Being yourself can be interpreted in many ways. For instance, the way someone acts, the way someone talks or the way they think can all be factors of behaviour. So when you are trying to ‘be yourself’, it basically means that you behave in a particular way that you think is right for yourself which makes one different from others. Overall, I think ‘be yourself’ is good advice but I believe it must be seen from different standpoints.

Firstly, Everyone in this world can look up to someone but not anyone can be the person that someone looks up to. Everyone in this world is different and it can be seen from their appearance or their behaviours and personalities or even talents. It’s normal for people to look up to someone and to get inspired but when you recite the things they do then does that make you someone else? In my opinion the answer is both yes and no, as it depends on whether you are crossing the border for being inspired and trying to be your idol. If I am a fan of basketball and want to be like Lebron James then it’s normal for me to try to follow his training routines, and this doesn’t make me someone else. But if I copy him even to the smallest things that makes me lose my own unique identity.

Next, ‘be yourself’ also means to be true to yourself. Life is full of choices and how you live depends on what opportunities you create by the choices you make thus stating the quote “There are no mistakes, only opportunities.” by Tina Fey. There are thousands of choices you can make everyday and those choices lead you to either have a better experience or a worse experience. For example in relevance to the current worldwide pandemic situation many people chose to not follow the regulations of wearing face masks. But this selfishness influenced many people, helping to increase the spread of covid.This all started from a small number of individuals and groups including families which now is the main cause of infected patients. By the looks of this ‘be yourself’ could be called a selfish act but if you think about it from the perspective of those people who wore masks regularly they also influenced people and actually helped prove that masks are helpful.  

Lastly, there are times that being yourself helps you make the best out of a situation. For example if you really don’t want to do something then you really shouldn’t force yourself to entertain others and also you should make stupid decisions for someone else’s sake. For example if you have symptoms of Covid-19 then you should tell whoever got in contact with you and restrict you from meeting anyone and should go for a check up. That would help you to not spread it to anyone close to you and not worsen the situation.

In a nutshell I believe that ‘be yourself’ really depends on the different situations. It is not really good advice because it means to follow your instincts whether it is a good or a bad decision but in some situations being true to yourself would prevent the situation from getting worse.