
Be who you are - ryanwaggoner
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/09/be-who-you-are/
======
jhuckestein
I'd rather live by "Be who you want to be".

The title "Be who you are" seems to imply that who you are is an immutable
property, presumably defined in your early childhood or something. I don't
think that's true.

At age 15, I was as geeky as any kid could be. I frequently skipped school
because I studied Mathematics at the University in parallel, didn't care too
much about how I looked and didn't like talking with people. Then I decided to
change (and I agree with the OP that girls played a big role in this); I
started talking to people, went to high school parties (worth it) and took my
sisters' fashion advice. Now, 7 years later, I couldn't be happier :) I'm
healthy, get to work on awesome difficult problems every day, don't feel like
an outcast and picked up some important skills along the way.

Be who you want to be. If you want to be a non-awkward geek, you can even be
that :)

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You're right, that's a better title. A lot of the commenters seem to be
reacting more to the title than the post, but whatever. My point was just that
I wish I had done what I wanted because I was interested in it, not because I
wanted to fit in with some group of "cool" kids.

------
sbaqai
This may be tangentially related, but here goes:

During the last week of high school, my favorite teacher pulled me aside. It
was a po-dunk high school and I had gotten into one of the top engineering
universities in the US, so I was pretty satisfied with myself. But I was also
a geek, incredibly coy, and completely one-dimensional.

I admired the guy a lot. He never bull-shitted any of the students. If he
didn't like you, he'd say so. But me and him hit it off, even though he was a
history teacher and I was a hard science guy. I think he always saw me for the
person I could be, rather than who I was at the time. He pulled me aside, and
he said "promise me in college you'll live you're life fully." And I knew what
he meant. After getting into college, I kind of collapsed. All the work paid
off, but I had so much free time, I didn't know what to do with it towards the
end of high school. Hadn't asked any girls out. Never played any sports. Never
found a good group of friends. I completely neglected major parts of my life.

So in college, I sort of reinvented myself. Joined a bunch of social clubs,
even became president of one, asked girls out, got shot down, asked girls out
some more, didn't get shot down, played sports, made a great group of friends
(who all studied different things), and also did well in school. I became much
MUCH happier (and I was already pretty happy).

Getting shot down - man, I learned more about myself from that experience than
I have all of the science I studied combined. His point was to live through
experience, not just knowledge. Up until college, I was someone who had filled
his head/life with books and studying, and stuck to what I was good at.

What I realized was, in high school, you can't possibly know who you are. You
might know a few subjects you're good at, and try to reinforce your confidence
by sticking only to those subjects and hanging out with the people who do the
same. Thats how you get geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, emo kids. Each group
follows their own limiting ideology. You'll never see geeks into sports, or
cheerleaders into science, etc, etc. At least at the school I was at.

But its the perfect time to just explore. To NOT get stuck in any particular
group. "Who you are" should be a very fluid concept when you're young. And as
far as I'm concerned, after graduating recently, its still a useful way to
look at yourself. "Sticking to what you're good at" may be the way to rack up
success. But you don't live through a diversity of experience that might
ultimately define who you can become.

------
jrwoodruff
More importantly, I say live without regrets. You'll never make the right
choices 100% of the time, and the mistakes you think you made are as much a
part of who you are now as the things you got right. You never really know
what the outcome would have been had you chosen the opposite: Maybe you
wouldn't have had the social skills to get that job, maybe you wouldn't have
met that friend of a friend of your new popular friend who introduced you to
your future wife, etc.

Reflection and maturity is healthy, but harboring regrets and second-guessing
past decisions just isn't worth it.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I agree with the sentiment of not getting caught up second-guessing yourself,
but I think that the line of reasoning you're espousing destroys any hope of
learning from past mistakes, and by extension, diminishes the importance of
carefully considering future decisions. If I don't look back and learn from my
mistakes because I never know what would have happened in the other case, why
bother putting any thought into my current decisions? Very shortly they'll be
in the past and I can avoid regretting them as well :)

I wrote a post about this where I hopefully explain in a little better. Just
don't get caught up on the word "regret":

[http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/why-im-learning-to-love-
regr...](http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/why-im-learning-to-love-regret/)

------
barrkel
I stayed geeky, to my detriment. I went to an all-boys school, and didn't so
much as talk to a female younger than 30 between the ages of 12 and 19.
Meanwhile, I was too geeky even for school, getting buried in computer science
etc. long before there was any academic reward from it, to the extent that I
failed English in my final exams and ended up going to a small-town no-name
college a couple of years later than my peers, surrounded by unambitious and
average students, and knowing more about the topics that interested me than my
lecturers. I had a good time playing pool, though.

It kinda worked out in the end, as I knew that once I had a job, I could
shine. But I regret my misspent youth. Irresponsibility isn't as kindly
regarded in older people.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
I'm living that life right now :(

~~~
c1sc0
If you feel bored and lonely, do something that scares you. That's how I got
through difficult times. Lots of geeks remain geeky out of self-consciousness.
Never be afraid to make a fool of yourself. 10 years from now nobody will give
a shit anyway. Go out and do something new that scares you.

------
iamwil
Sometimes, it's tough. For reasons I won't get into here, I don't want to get
my future-fiance a diamond. It can be any other gemstone, just not a diamond.
She can get herself a diamond, it just won't come from me.

Telling my female friends--even the level-headed, rational, down-to-earth ones
--resulted in opposition. At best, they would just say good luck finding a
girl like that. At worst, they'd keep arguing about why I should get her a
diamond.

If you're going to be who you are, there will be things that you believe in
that are going to be different from others. If you have things that are
different, some people will fight you on it. Pick your battles carefully.

~~~
psnj
I think the "diamond test" is useful and elegant in its simplicity: a woman
that requires a diamond to marry you is the wrong woman.

~~~
iamwil
Alas, then many good women are all the wrong women then. I don't know why, but
diamonds have a tight grip on many feminine psyche.

------
noname123
Be who you are. Worst advice ever. What does that even mean?

As a scientist, you perform the same experiment 100 times with the same
conditions, same procedures and get the same result. You don't expect to see a
different result on the 101st time unless you change something different.

Most geeks like to think of themselves as possessing both the ambition and
talent to "change the world"; but yet at the same time, they also like to
think of themselves as empathetic (unlike those jock duches), hard-working
(engineering creates value unlike sales) & down to earth (supports liberal
causes) whose work and personality will only improve society for the better.

When in reality, most geeks are afraid of rocking the boat and are eager to
please. No one can blame someone who "wants to change the world." No one will
get jealous when you are at the bottom of the social totem-pole or an engineer
that takes marching orders gladly from management. It takes guts to admit that
you are a selfish person (which all human beings are) and oppose other people
to get what you want. Especially if the other person comes from a position of
greater power (politically, economically, physically, sexually), but that's
what makes a man a man, standing up for yourself against all odds.

If you want to be rich, get laid, or even get ahead career-wise. You have to
be willing to do what other people aren't willing to do, which is to say take
risks that most people aren't willing to bear. You have to be willing to lose
all your money and time, get slapped countless times, get into fights, get
fired, lose your job, friends & girlfriend. You are willing to undergo
ridicule, humiliation & oppression from your peers, parents & authority to be
who you want to be, not what other people want you to be. If you can't stand
the heat, then get out of the kitchen but don't rationalize it to "being who
you are" because you are not who you should be because you don't want to take
the risks.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I have no idea what your rant means or how it relates to the blog post that I
wrote. All I can say is that I don't see any evidence that being successful
requires shitting on everyone else. What a depressing and negative way to live
your life...seems like it would be self-fulfilling. If you treat life like a
zero-sum game where you have to step on someone else to get a step ahead, then
people will probably not be willing to help you and you'll end up having to do
the very thing you thought you had to do to get ahead.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I know too many people who are very successful
who I admire on almost every metric. And if "success" did require shitting on
people, it's not for me.

------
edw519
_And most regrettably, I stopped hanging out with certain people because I
felt like they would be a drag on my newfound social ambition._

So did I. And I've been haunted ever since by a TV show that perfectly
captured my experience. It was "The Square Dance" episode of "The Wonder
Years", when Kevin wouldn't hang out with the girl he wanted to because of
what other people would think.

The closing voiceover:

"The funny thing is, it's hard to remember the names of the kids you spent so
much time trying to impress. But you don't forget someone like Margaret
Farquhar. Professor of Biology. Mother of six. Friend to bats."

------
agentultra
Man, I've been several different people already. I'm not even who I was
yesterday and I'm certainly nothing like who I was just five years ago. No
amount of wishful thinking or regret will change any of that. I don't really
mind though because I can look back at those people and learn something new.
They may not have made all the best choices, but I still have a chance.

~~~
c1sc0
Totally agree, identity is self-illusion at best.

~~~
thereddestruby
It's all a matter of picking the best self-illusion you can think of, really.

------
maxklein
You're very, very wrong. Be many different people over the course of your
life. Try many different things, lose friends, make friends.

Life is variety, and each new experience will teach you things you can apply
in different ways. It's good to excel in one thing, but you have to be good
all-round. And not being a geeky dork is a good way to get started.

Just because you start out one way (it's your parents who actually made that
decision for you) does not mean you should end up that way.

There's one guy who you have to believe made the right decision based on the
circumstances he was in - that's young ryan. Don't second guess young ryan, he
did what he felt he needed to do. Don't go back and belittle his decision.
Instead, use his experience to make better and better decisions moving
forward.

He was right, and now you have grown more conservative and blame him for that.
Don't. Every _new_ thing you do in life is the right thing.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_Every new thing you do in life is the right thing._

Sorry, couldn't disagree more. To take an extreme example, I could go out and
rape or murder someone, which I've never done before. But that's definitely
not the right thing. Decisions have consequences, and should be weighed
accordingly. I agree that we should always be seeking to expand our horizons,
to experience new things, to grow as individuals. And I have. But if that lust
for novelty is your only moral compass, you're in for a rough ride.

~~~
derefr
Horrible strawman—though, in theory, you "could" go out and rape or murder
someone, there is likely no you from the current you whose biological
processes would predetermine those actions (or, in simpler terms, "you don't
have it in you.") You can't get there from here—you wouldn't allow yourself to
start.

On the other hand, everywhere that you _can_ go, every you you _can_ be
without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should become.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_there is likely no you from the current you whose biological processes would
predetermine those actions_

...

 _every you you can be without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should
become._

Not really grasping how choice plays into your view of reality. Am I
predetermined through biological processes, or do I have a choice to become
the things I _should_ become?

------
nadadenada
Learning who you are is not independent of living (being). I should say that
you will discover who you are and that you never are in a steady state, so a
tree can be a tree but a person is a project to be developed, so I don't think
is correct to say "be".

------
ryanwaggoner
I posted this here because I know that many people here can probably relate to
the awkward years of high school, though I suspect most here on HN were the
types who stayed true to who they were and paid a price at the hands of
shallow people like me :(

~~~
RBerenguel
I already commented on the post. Don't feel bad, I also hang here in HN but
were one of those outliers (maybe not as much as you did, because we did not
have clubs in our HS, but I gave up playing chess, too...)

------
zuggywugg
Every man (or woman) wants a chance to go back in time and fix something, its
human nature. Tell a high-schooler what your mistakes were and not to make
them, he'll make sure to repeat them. Part of being a teenager is knowing
everything.

------
c00p3r
That's might be a good advice for some introverts who want to stay who they
are. But I think it is a bad advice.

Going always the same patch from work to home, eat always the same food all
the time, creating a ritual from everything - that is a common way for an
introverts an autistic people to stay away from the world, always looking to
the ground.

I know, it is almost painful to do a new, different things, you need some
effort, to force you to go a different way, to try a different combination, to
visit a new, strange place, and especially to talk to a strange people. But
after a many tries you will re-frame yourself, and there will be no more
regret ever.

The DRY principle is not only for programmers. It is all about going out of a
comfort zone, about developing a new habits and re-framing those which are
here from a childhood.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Sigh...I really wish that I had picked a different title. Believe me, I'm
definitely not the type to just stick to the same routine. I've packed quite a
bit into the last 15 years of my life, thank you. But to the extent that I did
things to impress others or meet someone else's expectations to the detriment
of my own purpose and interests, it was probably a mistake. That's all I was
trying to say.

