Be who you are(ryanwaggoner.com)
ryanwaggoner.com
Be who you are
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/09/be-who-you-are/
13 comments
You'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.
It'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.
> 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.
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.
This may be tangentially related, but here goes:
During the last week of high school, my favorite teacher pulled me aside. It was a po-dunk high school and I had gotten into one of the top engineering universities in the US, so I was pretty satisfied with myself. But I was also a geek, incredibly coy, and completely one-dimensional.
I admired the guy a lot. He never bull-shitted any of the students. If he didn't like you, he'd say so. But me and him hit it off, even though he was a history teacher and I was a hard science guy. I think he always saw me for the person I could be, rather than who I was at the time. He pulled me aside, and he said "promise me in college you'll live you're life fully." And I knew what he meant. After getting into college, I kind of collapsed. All the work paid off, but I had so much free time, I didn't know what to do with it towards the end of high school. Hadn't asked any girls out. Never played any sports. Never found a good group of friends. I completely neglected major parts of my life.
So in college, I sort of reinvented myself. Joined a bunch of social clubs, even became president of one, asked girls out, got shot down, asked girls out some more, didn't get shot down, played sports, made a great group of friends (who all studied different things), and also did well in school. I became much MUCH happier (and I was already pretty happy).
Getting shot down - man, I learned more about myself from that experience than I have all of the science I studied combined. His point was to live through experience, not just knowledge. Up until college, I was someone who had filled his head/life with books and studying, and stuck to what I was good at.
What I realized was, in high school, you can't possibly know who you are. You might know a few subjects you're good at, and try to reinforce your confidence by sticking only to those subjects and hanging out with the people who do the same. Thats how you get geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, emo kids. Each group follows their own limiting ideology. You'll never see geeks into sports, or cheerleaders into science, etc, etc. At least at the school I was at.
But its the perfect time to just explore. To NOT get stuck in any particular group. "Who you are" should be a very fluid concept when you're young. And as far as I'm concerned, after graduating recently, its still a useful way to look at yourself. "Sticking to what you're good at" may be the way to rack up success. But you don't live through a diversity of experience that might ultimately define who you can become.
During the last week of high school, my favorite teacher pulled me aside. It was a po-dunk high school and I had gotten into one of the top engineering universities in the US, so I was pretty satisfied with myself. But I was also a geek, incredibly coy, and completely one-dimensional.
I admired the guy a lot. He never bull-shitted any of the students. If he didn't like you, he'd say so. But me and him hit it off, even though he was a history teacher and I was a hard science guy. I think he always saw me for the person I could be, rather than who I was at the time. He pulled me aside, and he said "promise me in college you'll live you're life fully." And I knew what he meant. After getting into college, I kind of collapsed. All the work paid off, but I had so much free time, I didn't know what to do with it towards the end of high school. Hadn't asked any girls out. Never played any sports. Never found a good group of friends. I completely neglected major parts of my life.
So in college, I sort of reinvented myself. Joined a bunch of social clubs, even became president of one, asked girls out, got shot down, asked girls out some more, didn't get shot down, played sports, made a great group of friends (who all studied different things), and also did well in school. I became much MUCH happier (and I was already pretty happy).
Getting shot down - man, I learned more about myself from that experience than I have all of the science I studied combined. His point was to live through experience, not just knowledge. Up until college, I was someone who had filled his head/life with books and studying, and stuck to what I was good at.
What I realized was, in high school, you can't possibly know who you are. You might know a few subjects you're good at, and try to reinforce your confidence by sticking only to those subjects and hanging out with the people who do the same. Thats how you get geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, emo kids. Each group follows their own limiting ideology. You'll never see geeks into sports, or cheerleaders into science, etc, etc. At least at the school I was at.
But its the perfect time to just explore. To NOT get stuck in any particular group. "Who you are" should be a very fluid concept when you're young. And as far as I'm concerned, after graduating recently, its still a useful way to look at yourself. "Sticking to what you're good at" may be the way to rack up success. But you don't live through a diversity of experience that might ultimately define who you can become.
More importantly, I say live without regrets. You'll never make the right choices 100% of the time, and the mistakes you think you made are as much a part of who you are now as the things you got right. You never really know what the outcome would have been had you chosen the opposite: Maybe you wouldn't have had the social skills to get that job, maybe you wouldn't have met that friend of a friend of your new popular friend who introduced you to your future wife, etc.
Reflection and maturity is healthy, but harboring regrets and second-guessing past decisions just isn't worth it.
Reflection and maturity is healthy, but harboring regrets and second-guessing past decisions just isn't worth it.
I agree with the sentiment of not getting caught up second-guessing yourself, but I think that the line of reasoning you're espousing destroys any hope of learning from past mistakes, and by extension, diminishes the importance of carefully considering future decisions. If I don't look back and learn from my mistakes because I never know what would have happened in the other case, why bother putting any thought into my current decisions? Very shortly they'll be in the past and I can avoid regretting them as well :)
I wrote a post about this where I hopefully explain in a little better. Just don't get caught up on the word "regret":
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/why-im-learning-to-love-regr...
I wrote a post about this where I hopefully explain in a little better. Just don't get caught up on the word "regret":
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/why-im-learning-to-love-regr...
I stayed geeky, to my detriment. I went to an all-boys school, and didn't so much as talk to a female younger than 30 between the ages of 12 and 19. Meanwhile, I was too geeky even for school, getting buried in computer science etc. long before there was any academic reward from it, to the extent that I failed English in my final exams and ended up going to a small-town no-name college a couple of years later than my peers, surrounded by unambitious and average students, and knowing more about the topics that interested me than my lecturers. I had a good time playing pool, though.
It kinda worked out in the end, as I knew that once I had a job, I could shine. But I regret my misspent youth. Irresponsibility isn't as kindly regarded in older people.
It kinda worked out in the end, as I knew that once I had a job, I could shine. But I regret my misspent youth. Irresponsibility isn't as kindly regarded in older people.
It's hard to have it both ways, unless you're one of those rare old souls in a teenager.
I stayed pretty geeky though it wasn't without its price. I'm sure I said all sorts of offensive things to people, because I'm just more matter of fact about things. "Oh, people say the kid looks like the father to assure him of his paternity, since we pretty much know who the mother is." So I never made fast friends, and I was, at best, an acquired taste. These days, I wished I made more friends in college.
However, I was lucky that I found a core group of friends that liked me as I was. That probably helped.
I stayed pretty geeky though it wasn't without its price. I'm sure I said all sorts of offensive things to people, because I'm just more matter of fact about things. "Oh, people say the kid looks like the father to assure him of his paternity, since we pretty much know who the mother is." So I never made fast friends, and I was, at best, an acquired taste. These days, I wished I made more friends in college.
However, I was lucky that I found a core group of friends that liked me as I was. That probably helped.
I'm living that life right now :(
If you feel bored and lonely, do something that scares you. That's how I got through difficult times. Lots of geeks remain geeky out of self-consciousness. Never be afraid to make a fool of yourself. 10 years from now nobody will give a shit anyway. Go out and do something new that scares you.
Sometimes, it's tough. For reasons I won't get into here, I don't want to get my future-fiance a diamond. It can be any other gemstone, just not a diamond. She can get herself a diamond, it just won't come from me.
Telling my female friends--even the level-headed, rational, down-to-earth ones--resulted in opposition. At best, they would just say good luck finding a girl like that. At worst, they'd keep arguing about why I should get her a diamond.
If you're going to be who you are, there will be things that you believe in that are going to be different from others. If you have things that are different, some people will fight you on it. Pick your battles carefully.
Telling my female friends--even the level-headed, rational, down-to-earth ones--resulted in opposition. At best, they would just say good luck finding a girl like that. At worst, they'd keep arguing about why I should get her a diamond.
If you're going to be who you are, there will be things that you believe in that are going to be different from others. If you have things that are different, some people will fight you on it. Pick your battles carefully.
Oh brother, I sympathize with you on this one! There seem to be few topics quite so impervious to reason. But I can assure you these girls do exist. (I've met two, but unfortunately in neither case did I make it to the diamond-free opportunity in question)
And I agree, never argue this case. It is an article of faith more holy than God or Nutrition...
And I agree, never argue this case. It is an article of faith more holy than God or Nutrition...
Be who you are. Worst advice ever. What does that even mean?
As a scientist, you perform the same experiment 100 times with the same conditions, same procedures and get the same result. You don't expect to see a different result on the 101st time unless you change something different.
Most geeks like to think of themselves as possessing both the ambition and talent to "change the world"; but yet at the same time, they also like to think of themselves as empathetic (unlike those jock duches), hard-working (engineering creates value unlike sales) & down to earth (supports liberal causes) whose work and personality will only improve society for the better.
When in reality, most geeks are afraid of rocking the boat and are eager to please. No one can blame someone who "wants to change the world." No one will get jealous when you are at the bottom of the social totem-pole or an engineer that takes marching orders gladly from management. It takes guts to admit that you are a selfish person (which all human beings are) and oppose other people to get what you want. Especially if the other person comes from a position of greater power (politically, economically, physically, sexually), but that's what makes a man a man, standing up for yourself against all odds.
If you want to be rich, get laid, or even get ahead career-wise. You have to be willing to do what other people aren't willing to do, which is to say take risks that most people aren't willing to bear. You have to be willing to lose all your money and time, get slapped countless times, get into fights, get fired, lose your job, friends & girlfriend. You are willing to undergo ridicule, humiliation & oppression from your peers, parents & authority to be who you want to be, not what other people want you to be. If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen but don't rationalize it to "being who you are" because you are not who you should be because you don't want to take the risks.
As a scientist, you perform the same experiment 100 times with the same conditions, same procedures and get the same result. You don't expect to see a different result on the 101st time unless you change something different.
Most geeks like to think of themselves as possessing both the ambition and talent to "change the world"; but yet at the same time, they also like to think of themselves as empathetic (unlike those jock duches), hard-working (engineering creates value unlike sales) & down to earth (supports liberal causes) whose work and personality will only improve society for the better.
When in reality, most geeks are afraid of rocking the boat and are eager to please. No one can blame someone who "wants to change the world." No one will get jealous when you are at the bottom of the social totem-pole or an engineer that takes marching orders gladly from management. It takes guts to admit that you are a selfish person (which all human beings are) and oppose other people to get what you want. Especially if the other person comes from a position of greater power (politically, economically, physically, sexually), but that's what makes a man a man, standing up for yourself against all odds.
If you want to be rich, get laid, or even get ahead career-wise. You have to be willing to do what other people aren't willing to do, which is to say take risks that most people aren't willing to bear. You have to be willing to lose all your money and time, get slapped countless times, get into fights, get fired, lose your job, friends & girlfriend. You are willing to undergo ridicule, humiliation & oppression from your peers, parents & authority to be who you want to be, not what other people want you to be. If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen but don't rationalize it to "being who you are" because you are not who you should be because you don't want to take the risks.
I have no idea what your rant means or how it relates to the blog post that I wrote. All I can say is that I don't see any evidence that being successful requires shitting on everyone else. What a depressing and negative way to live your life...seems like it would be self-fulfilling. If you treat life like a zero-sum game where you have to step on someone else to get a step ahead, then people will probably not be willing to help you and you'll end up having to do the very thing you thought you had to do to get ahead.
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I know too many people who are very successful who I admire on almost every metric. And if "success" did require shitting on people, it's not for me.
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I know too many people who are very successful who I admire on almost every metric. And if "success" did require shitting on people, it's not for me.
Not so. You can just follow the designated path for a well-paying career and be fairly successful, maybe not without doing hard work, but without any need to rock the boat or do anything novel.
Someone has been reading way too much Ayn Rand. Selfish != assertive and lots of people out there live perfectly assertive lives without opposing other people all the time. I think there's a difference in following your goals/dreams and being a martyr.
I'm so happy that we don't live in the same worlds.
And most regrettably, I stopped hanging out with certain people because I felt like they would be a drag on my newfound social ambition.
So did I. And I've been haunted ever since by a TV show that perfectly captured my experience. It was "The Square Dance" episode of "The Wonder Years", when Kevin wouldn't hang out with the girl he wanted to because of what other people would think.
The closing voiceover:
"The funny thing is, it's hard to remember the names of the kids you spent so much time trying to impress. But you don't forget someone like Margaret Farquhar. Professor of Biology. Mother of six. Friend to bats."
So did I. And I've been haunted ever since by a TV show that perfectly captured my experience. It was "The Square Dance" episode of "The Wonder Years", when Kevin wouldn't hang out with the girl he wanted to because of what other people would think.
The closing voiceover:
"The funny thing is, it's hard to remember the names of the kids you spent so much time trying to impress. But you don't forget someone like Margaret Farquhar. Professor of Biology. Mother of six. Friend to bats."
Man, I've been several different people already. I'm not even who I was yesterday and I'm certainly nothing like who I was just five years ago. No amount of wishful thinking or regret will change any of that. I don't really mind though because I can look back at those people and learn something new. They may not have made all the best choices, but I still have a chance.
Totally agree, identity is self-illusion at best.
It's all a matter of picking the best self-illusion you can think of, really.
You're very, very wrong. Be many different people over the course of your life. Try many different things, lose friends, make friends.
Life is variety, and each new experience will teach you things you can apply in different ways. It's good to excel in one thing, but you have to be good all-round. And not being a geeky dork is a good way to get started.
Just because you start out one way (it's your parents who actually made that decision for you) does not mean you should end up that way.
There's one guy who you have to believe made the right decision based on the circumstances he was in - that's young ryan. Don't second guess young ryan, he did what he felt he needed to do. Don't go back and belittle his decision. Instead, use his experience to make better and better decisions moving forward.
He was right, and now you have grown more conservative and blame him for that. Don't. Every new thing you do in life is the right thing.
Life is variety, and each new experience will teach you things you can apply in different ways. It's good to excel in one thing, but you have to be good all-round. And not being a geeky dork is a good way to get started.
Just because you start out one way (it's your parents who actually made that decision for you) does not mean you should end up that way.
There's one guy who you have to believe made the right decision based on the circumstances he was in - that's young ryan. Don't second guess young ryan, he did what he felt he needed to do. Don't go back and belittle his decision. Instead, use his experience to make better and better decisions moving forward.
He was right, and now you have grown more conservative and blame him for that. Don't. Every new thing you do in life is the right thing.
Every new thing you do in life is the right thing.
Sorry, couldn't disagree more. To take an extreme example, I could go out and rape or murder someone, which I've never done before. But that's definitely not the right thing. Decisions have consequences, and should be weighed accordingly. I agree that we should always be seeking to expand our horizons, to experience new things, to grow as individuals. And I have. But if that lust for novelty is your only moral compass, you're in for a rough ride.
Sorry, couldn't disagree more. To take an extreme example, I could go out and rape or murder someone, which I've never done before. But that's definitely not the right thing. Decisions have consequences, and should be weighed accordingly. I agree that we should always be seeking to expand our horizons, to experience new things, to grow as individuals. And I have. But if that lust for novelty is your only moral compass, you're in for a rough ride.
Horrible strawman—though, in theory, you "could" go out and rape or murder someone, there is likely no you from the current you whose biological processes would predetermine those actions (or, in simpler terms, "you don't have it in you.") You can't get there from here—you wouldn't allow yourself to start.
On the other hand, everywhere that you can go, every you you can be without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should become.
On the other hand, everywhere that you can go, every you you can be without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should become.
there is likely no you from the current you whose biological processes would predetermine those actions
...
every you you can be without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should become.
Not really grasping how choice plays into your view of reality. Am I predetermined through biological processes, or do I have a choice to become the things I should become?
...
every you you can be without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should become.
Not really grasping how choice plays into your view of reality. Am I predetermined through biological processes, or do I have a choice to become the things I should become?
Morality aside, murdering someone is a new experience that you will likely learn a lot from. Of course, there are highly negative consequences that you would not want to deal with. And of course, you are hurting other people...literary.
If you decide to murder someone, then you have to agree to support the decisions of your past self.
If you decide to murder someone, then you have to agree to support the decisions of your past self.
He's not wrong any more than you aren't wrong. He's just living a different life than you are because you are both very different people, and what works for one does not work for the other.
You've taken the 'Be many different people over the course of your life.' to it's literal extreme where you left behind your old self like a butterfly leaves behind the caterpillar, but that does not mean that that is for everybody.
You've taken the 'Be many different people over the course of your life.' to it's literal extreme where you left behind your old self like a butterfly leaves behind the caterpillar, but that does not mean that that is for everybody.
Learning who you are is not independent of living (being). I should say that you will discover who you are and that you never are in a steady state, so a tree can be a tree but a person is a project to be developed, so I don't think is correct to say "be".
I posted this here because I know that many people here can probably relate to the awkward years of high school, though I suspect most here on HN were the types who stayed true to who they were and paid a price at the hands of shallow people like me :(
I already commented on the post. Don't feel bad, I also hang here in HN but were one of those outliers (maybe not as much as you did, because we did not have clubs in our HS, but I gave up playing chess, too...)
this is a great article and really hits home. Coming full circle and realizing the choices were shallow is the true lesson.
Even if you could go back in time and tell yourself otherwise you couldn't change your mind.
It's all about the journey.
It's all about the journey.
Every man (or woman) wants a chance to go back in time and fix something, its human nature. Tell a high-schooler what your mistakes were and not to make them, he'll make sure to repeat them. Part of being a teenager is knowing everything.
That's might be a good advice for some introverts who want to stay who they are. But I think it is a bad advice.
Going always the same patch from work to home, eat always the same food all the time, creating a ritual from everything - that is a common way for an introverts an autistic people to stay away from the world, always looking to the ground.
I know, it is almost painful to do a new, different things, you need some effort, to force you to go a different way, to try a different combination, to visit a new, strange place, and especially to talk to a strange people. But after a many tries you will re-frame yourself, and there will be no more regret ever.
The DRY principle is not only for programmers. It is all about going out of a comfort zone, about developing a new habits and re-framing those which are here from a childhood.
Going always the same patch from work to home, eat always the same food all the time, creating a ritual from everything - that is a common way for an introverts an autistic people to stay away from the world, always looking to the ground.
I know, it is almost painful to do a new, different things, you need some effort, to force you to go a different way, to try a different combination, to visit a new, strange place, and especially to talk to a strange people. But after a many tries you will re-frame yourself, and there will be no more regret ever.
The DRY principle is not only for programmers. It is all about going out of a comfort zone, about developing a new habits and re-framing those which are here from a childhood.
Sigh...I really wish that I had picked a different title. Believe me, I'm definitely not the type to just stick to the same routine. I've packed quite a bit into the last 15 years of my life, thank you. But to the extent that I did things to impress others or meet someone else's expectations to the detriment of my own purpose and interests, it was probably a mistake. That's all I was trying to say.
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 :)