Be Yourself (take your pick)

Big Frank has been thinking about "being yourself". Of course, that means: Big Frank being himself and you being yourself - in other words, for a person to truly be who it is that they are. You know how people are constantly telling others in tense situations to not worry about things - "just be yourself" as though it were like a choice between that or being Frank Sinatra, Pee Wee Herman, or some random person out of the phone book. When in reality it is a choice among being Yourself A, Yourself B, Yourself C, Yourself D. etc. The advice is really predicated on there actually being one true personality. Of course, Big Frank is aware - thank you, that most people truly believe that they have a benchmark, baseline, authentic personality. This is a personality that when they are totally alone and have no roles to play they naturally allow free reign, but - that approach holds - in the face of social pressure, insecurity, attempts at social leverage, or the belief that one can customize one's behavior to gain certain advantage, that people then will put on certain personalities to better position themselves for desired gains. OK - we all do this to a certain extent, and . . . it works (that's why we do it). However, people don't generally accept friends who have multiple personalities - this is considered abnormal and most people want normal friends. What Big Frank means here is that we all want a certain predictability in our friends and certainly in our significant others. With predictability goes authenticity. People who put on personalities like others put on clothes leave others scratching their heads concerning how to react to that person. In this sense it's more about the other than about you. There's nothing wrong with having and using different personalities as far as you are concerned, but be aware that it makes others uncomfortable. So, what's the conclusion. Be yourselves! Give yourself full reign to all that you are - it's all you after all! As the man, Marcus Aurelius, said: "Ignoring what goes on in other people's souls - nobody ever came to grief that way. But if you won't keep track of what your own soul's doing how can you not be unhappy."