Probably you have received advice of this in one form or the other: be yourself, be authentic… etc. Came across an article that goes a bit deeper into the history of where such thinking originated. It is an interested read. Here are a couple of interesting paragraphs from this article.
“How can one avoid the pitfalls of this phoney authenticity? More historical awareness of where our ideals of authenticity and freedom come from can help. As the American political philosopher Matthew B Crawford details in his book The World Beyond Your Head (2015), the narcissist has a mistaken idea of freedom. Crawford follows Adorno and Lasch, agreeing that the groundlessness of human action doesn’t imply that human beings are or should be completely autonomous. We’re born into a particular place and time, with particular psychological and physical attributions, and with particular people and traditions available to us that we can draw on or reject. These constraints are debilitating only if we see them as such, if we consider them as fetters from which the self should ideally be free. In reality, many rules and constraints are enabling: they are the conditions of freedom, not the barriers to it. They are the friction that allow us to move forward.”
“Learning a craft can teach us a lot about what exactly it is to actualise a self. The word ‘authenticity’ comes from the Greek authentes for ‘master’ or ‘one acting on his own authority’ (aut = self and hentes = making or working on/crafting). Importantly, it doesn’t mean ‘self-maker’ in the reflexive sense of one who makes himself, but one who makes or acts according to his own will – making from out of the self. And in crafting of our accord, we do actually actualise ourselves. We transform inner feelings into something real.”
More of this article here from Aeog mag: [The Link]
Also check out the website: Psyche | on the human condition