Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice (2016)
"Being yourself", authenticity, and direct/brutal honesty are roughly orthogonal; you can (or not be) one without affecting the others. They are not the same thing.<p>Being <i>not</i> yourself takes energy and focus. Being yourself is free. It's also multiplicative: the amount of effort you put into something that's in alignment with yourself goes much further than effort put into something not in alignment. It's also restorative: doing things in alignment with yourself can restore energy and focus.<p>You don't need to determine the magic single identity that is yourself, or the magic single principle that defines yourself. Those don't exist; you just need to go "fuck it, I don't need to spend the effort to be somebody else; myself works just fine."