Don't Just be Yourself
"Just be yourself" is a very common piece of advice for relationships or life or in general. What could it mean in Lenore's terms?
Hypotheses
Hypothesis #1: "just follow the dominant"
Since people invest most of their ego in their dominant function-attitude, they may derive their sense of self from following that dominant function. In this case, "just be yourself" may mean "just follow your dominant function."
Hypothesis #2: "just introvert"
"Just be yourself" is often accompanied by platitudes like "don't change yourself for others." In this case, it may mean "just go introvert." Specifically, "just be yourself" carries shades of introverted feeling, because it involves concentrating on your feeling of selfhood. Unfortunately, "just be yourself" often manifests as tertiary Fi when it only means refraining from stepping outside your comfort zone, e.g. "I know what I'm doing right now isn't working, but if I was to do anything else, it just wouldn't be me."
Is "just be yourself" good advice?
When "just be yourself" means "just follow the dominant," it is bad advice for everyone. According to Lenore, most people are following the dominant already, and need to develop the secondary function instead. When "just be yourself" means "just introvert," it may be good advice for extraverts, especially EFPs who need to develop Fi. Yet it is terrible advice for introverts, who probably need to extravert more and cultivate shallowness.
"Just be yourself" is in itself meaningless -- or at least, dangerously presumptuous -- advice
Telling someone to "just be yourself" (or saying this to yourself) presumes that one knows what the 'self' actually is, and therefore, what the self needs for nourishment. This is an radically baseless belief.
Evidently and unarguably, people self-identify with their dominant function. It doesn't matter if they know a single thing about type theory. An Fi will "feel whole" when nourishing things that are Fi-friendly. Same goes for Te, Se, and so on.
Yet as is proposed here, and clearly plays out in reality, people who feed their dominant function -- at the cost of everything else -- become *dangerously psychologically disintegrated*, many cases, pathologically so.
We see this very often -- and we can see it right now in global celebrity culture -- with how people use the power of wealth. Most people suddenly awash with money (such as lottery winners or rags-to-riches stars) simply use that money to "be themselves" -- that is, to nourish their dominant function. (It should be noted, too, that dominant-sensors have an extra layer to work through here, since maintaining an Se lifestyle within an Se culture not only seems to be normal, but something to role model).
My point, again, is that telling people to "be yourself" is not in itself good advice! It will SEEM good for a while, maybe even a few years, but invariably it will become toxic and, as Lenore notes in her book, self-destructive (and probably destructive to anyone in the orbit of the self-destructing person). This, again, is because over-reliance of the dominant function will let the secondary function atrophy, and therefore, the world-view (no matter how small that world is by the time this happens) becomes skewed and highly, highly simplified. When you listen to someone "rant" and foam at the mouth, be they preaching the Gospel of Jesus or the need to be environmentally friendly, you're watching someone on their way down. These people, paradoxically, are NOT being "themselves." They're being a figment of themselves; a slice -- one that gets thinner and thinner, until they become "lost to themselves."
Telling people to "be yourself" is only helpful when the person applying that advice has some self-awareness and impulse control. Teaching people that, before teaching them to "be yourself" is almost always going to be more helpful.
See Shallowness, Cocooning-vs.-conforming exegesis, Developing the Secondary.
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