"Just be yourself" is something we've all heard a thousand times. However, there are many problems with that advice. Being content with who you currently are WILL NOT solve any problems. The main problem with this advice is that by following it you become passive, and continue to indulge in destructive habits.

I was inspired to make this post by a few passages in The Book of Pook that changed my outlook on the issue:

"So Pook summoned two young men. Each stood in a corner. Pook then said, “Before us are two youths who are on the threshold of life. Both have the same origins. Yet, the destinations are different. Let us look at the first one.”

What was witnessed was that young man growing up. If he got a bump on his head, he would cry to his mother. He would pull on her apron strings. He felt safety and comfort in his mother. With his father, he felt an uncertain fear within him. His father was the one who set the punishments, the deadlines, the lessons that had to be learned. He preferred the company of his mother who seemed free from those hard edges.

Now the second young man’s childhood came into view. His life was exactly the same!

“Is there a point to this?” protested the impatient young man.

“Watch,” said the Pook.

The first young man never broke free from the enticing womb-like feeling around his mother. He sought to replicate it over and over. Off he tumbled into reality like tumbleweed blown every which way by the winds of the age. He didn’t know what he wanted to do in life so he did what everyone around him did. He was captive to his friends, never seeking to break apart to tend to his own matters or such. The playtime was too important to him, a part of that sense of ease and joy he had around his mother. He eventually found a girl, chose the first one that actually liked him (or tolerated him, he couldn’t know) and married. Alas! The marriage lasted only a few years until divorce came. “Why did she leave me?” whined the pathetic male. “I CHERISHED her! I bought her flowers everyday. I sang her sonnets. I always told her I loved her!” She complained, “He disgusted me.” The man goes through life, broken and re-broken, trying fruitlessly to re-build that sandcastle of childhood fun whiles waves of reality kept on crashing down on him. He dies forgotten and irrelevant.

“Oh!” cried the young man. “That is awful!”

“What is so awful?” Pook replied. “He was, after all, just being himself! Now for the second young man.”

This young man quickly realized that childhood was over. Rather then looking towards forever replicating that sense of summer vacation of escapefulness and feminine bliss, he launched himself at reality. “I will not live my life as a nothing!” he declared. His friends and friendly were astonished at his constant self- improvement, his constant blossoming of talent and will. He, in turn, was astonished at them. “It is like,” he would say, “That they are stuck in a type of stasis. I have changed; they acknowledge that. But THEY are exactly the same!” He got to PICK what woman he wanted. He got to PICK what career he wanted. He got to PICK his destiny. He answered life’s challenges and refused to retreat from them. Whereas the first young man was defined by the age within he lived, the second young man defined the age himself! When he died, countless people mourned. For they thought he was a genius. Others thought he was talented beyond description. Yet, others thought he was touched by heaven itself! After all, how else could these poor fools realize such success? “It couldn’t have been made,” they said. “He had to be born with it.” No, it was because he was a Man who chose to ground up the world, culture, and all to his vision rather than to be grounded up into the worldly culture’s axing wheel of routine and fashion.

“The difference is simple,” said the Pook. “The first young man is facing TOWARDS infancy. The second young man is facing AWAY from infancy. The first one wishes to climb back into the womb; the second one wants to fly from it. The first wishes a cushioned place in the world while the second one leaves the cushions behind. The first one is ordinary; the second one is extraordinary. Thus, the second one becomes the Great Catch while the first one merely becomes a filler of a void."

If I was being myself, I would never have left my comfort zone, I would have just played dota and sat on my ass all day. Excessive participation in instant gratification habits WILL inevitably destroy you, it's only a matter of time. Do not get comfortable with yourself; always strive to be greater.