>> “I certainly had no idea that being your authentic self could get you as rich as I have become,” Oprah Winfrey said jokingly a few years ago. ”If I’d known that, I’d have tried it a lot earlier.”
Look for interviews where she gets angry. Her voice drops an octave and her careful accent disappears. I wouldn't call her a phony, but she does have a public face.
I'm terrified by the people who do not have a public face, the people that don't hide. They seem to never falter. That can look like strength but they are unable to adapt to different audiences and that is a weakness. When you see that they hide nothing it is very difficult to forgive the gaffes because ... well, they aren't really gaffes. It's just crazy all the way down.
When I see people with a "public face" all the time, I can't help but think the same way you you think about those without one. It's scary, it's creepy, it's manipulative, it's far too adaptive, and it's incredibly transparent if you know to look for it.
I have social anxiety that makes having a "public face" impossible to hold for any extended period of time, so I don't even try anymore. I feel happier than ever and have significantly less anxiety without the need to fake it. Though, when I actually need to put on that face (job interview and walking down the street, apparently), it makes me feel dirty to the point of actual physical discomfort under the skin. It's disgusting, but it fucking works, and I refuse to do it unless forced to.
Sorry for the "crazy". A lot of us are just doing the best we can. We'll try to be less terrifying once you actually open up to us.
Empathy requires a public face, the ability to acknowledge and react differently than your base instincts tell you to. Otherwise you only come off as empathetic to people you agree with. Your supporters are enthralled because they see you as an honest mirror, but everyone else thinks you're loony tunes. That ability to keep a public face is perhaps the difference between the universally-loved hollywood celebs, and that polarizing politician.
I lived within the broadcast area of a station that employed Oprah's long-time friend, Gayle King. They aired a special about Oprah and Gayle that showed them talking to one another, and both of them sounded waaaaaay different from their television personae.
Credit to Oprah where it's due: if I know anything about people in broadcast television, I'd say most of them don't even realize how fake they are on the air. They think they're just as genuine with the cameras off as on. The switching of registers and mannerisms becomes habitual and unconscious.
Saying "be yourself" is a way to say "I'm suave enough to not have to think consciously about the persona I project". Likewise, "never settle" is a way to brag "I was good enough to not have to settle".
Be yourself should just be properly understood as a contraction for "be the best version of yourself" which is basically the thesis statement of this entire article.
"Be yourself" is actually really good and really bad advice. It's bad because it's uninformative, but good because it's true. The challenge lies in knowing who you are. The way there is long and hard. It's reconciling what you want with what you like, for example.
Except you're making the assumption the article highlights: you're operating under the belief that there is a concrete thing that "you are" that you should know.
As a person I'm constantly changing (or so I hope). Who I am now is not who I was ten years ago and probably won't be who I am ten years from now.
I prefer to try and simply understand myself; understand why I think, feel, or believe what I do, understand why I make the choices I make, etc. That then (hopefully) gives me the insight to change and improve.
As an aside, I've always found the human penchant for pigeonholing everything fascinating, especially when people do it to themselves. Many folks have a very concrete idea of who they are and aren't, and what they can and can't do... I see that as a real shame, as I often see people limit their own potential by harboring preconceived notions about themselves.
I see two issues in the article. I don't think that "being yourself" is the same thing as speaking without a filter, and I don't think that it requires someone to think of themselves as an unchanging entity.
> It worked. Next time people say, “just be yourself,” stop them in their tracks. No one wants to hear everything that’s in your head.
That last line is the core of the issue that I see. To me, an important aspect of "being myself" is living my life in my head, rather than through my actions. Acting out on everything I'm thinking would be distinctly un-self-like for me. I suspect that I'm just missing the point that the author's trying to make.
Been thinking about doing the same for the same reasons and moving out to Switzerland or Germany. Have you already started the process? I'm curious how others have done it and what their thoughts are during/before/after the expat plunge.
Job market in my country is terrible, so I have little to lose. Going to Canada for a Masters, after which I have a substantial salary expectation in the CA/US market, but not back home.
this article seems terribly concerned with some jargon about "high self monitoring". it seems to me like an insufficiently critical acceptance of the theory of personality and consciousness presented by that one particular psychology article.
this entire article and the underlying assumptions need to be taken with many grains of salt.
The way I see it, if one believes they should always be authentic, then they probably never take in to consideration how their thoughts/actions might affect others or the goals of a group. Hey, they're just being honest.
But, if one decides to potentially self sensor by taking the time to consider how their current thoughts or desired actions might affect others and they conclude they will have a negative outcome resulting in them not expressing or acting on them... Well, they may have just made a decision to be inauthentic. But they did so out of consideration and empathy for others. And if their authentic self does care for others, well maybe they are still being authentic.
If one doesn't care about others, and doesn't have empathy, well then they sound like an asshole to me. To them I say continue on spewing filterless thoughts... asshole. :)
Look for interviews where she gets angry. Her voice drops an octave and her careful accent disappears. I wouldn't call her a phony, but she does have a public face.
I'm terrified by the people who do not have a public face, the people that don't hide. They seem to never falter. That can look like strength but they are unable to adapt to different audiences and that is a weakness. When you see that they hide nothing it is very difficult to forgive the gaffes because ... well, they aren't really gaffes. It's just crazy all the way down.