People are always advising me (and everyone else in the free world, I guess) to "just be myself". Really? Do they really, really mean that?  You wouldn't think to yourself that I should stop being so me? You wouldn't think that you could do a better job at being me? You don't have a laundry list of tips you'd give me on all the hundreds of ways I can improve and become, well, less me?

Because I promise you, everybody thinks they can do a better job at being you than you can.  If I were you, boy howdy, I'd be a better you because it would be me doing things my way.

I do it myself all the time. It makes me crazy to see people do things the way I wouldn't do them or act the way I wouldn't act. Or say things I wouldn't say.

It's such a relief to be around people who are fine with you exactly as you are, this very moment in time.  Those people are rare, though. Usually they are under the age of 8 or are pets and not people at all.