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I'd rather live by "Be who you want to be". The title "Be who you are" seems to imply that who you are is an immutable property, presumably defined in your ear
by jhuckestein 16y ago
I'd rather live by "Be who you want to be".
The title "Be who you are" seems to imply that who you are is an immutable property, presumably defined in your early childhood or something. I don't think that's true.
At age 15, I was as geeky as any kid could be. I frequently skipped school because I studied Mathematics at the University in parallel, didn't care too much about how I looked and didn't like talking with people. Then I decided to change (and I agree with the OP that girls played a big role in this); I started talking to people, went to high school parties (worth it) and took my sisters' fashion advice. Now, 7 years later, I couldn't be happier :) I'm healthy, get to work on awesome difficult problems every day, don't feel like an outcast and picked up some important skills along the way.
Be who you want to be. If you want to be a non-awkward geek, you can even be that :)
- MikeCapone 16y ago> If you want to be a non-awkward geek, you can even be that :) That's very important. You don't have to be socially inept to be a real geek. You can be both smart and comfortable with people.
- ryanwaggoner 16y agoYou're right, that's a better title. A lot of the commenters seem to be reacting more to the title than the post, but whatever. My point was just that I wish I had done what I wanted because I was interested in it, not because I wanted to fit in with some group of "cool" kids.
- whatusername 16y agoIt's risky advice for a 15 year old in High School though. It's hard enough at 25 to work out who I want to be. It was much harder at 15 (and I, like ryanwaggoner and many others, made mistakes). He 'wanted' to be cool/accepted/liked by the girls.