aceism

i've been having a few interesting discussions with a couple of friends lately about being "fake." we all know these types. they adjust their personalities, beliefs and value systems to try to impress someone. what i knew from the very beginning was that generally this does not work, and that over the long term the genuine, honest self always wins.

so why do a lot of people try being fake?

i don't know. maybe the personality they were born with sucks. i know that never for one second have i tried being fake. i was born with the following traits: leadership, charisma, charm, intelligence, extroversion, optimism. even if I tried being fake it wouldn't work because i would not be able to reconcile my fake self with the much cooler person, me. i am generally an approachable person, so if I were to paint myself as something different people would see right through me and write me off as a charlatan or a con artist. that would suck. i value honesty. i think two of the most important facets of being a man is humility and honesty. Humility I will talk about in another post but absolute honesty always trumps all.

think about it. not everybody is perfect. honest people will be forgiven at one point or another. But nobody likes liars or people who cloud the truth. i know that i can't please everybody, and there are quite a few people out there that don't like me, but why should I adjust the version of my personality I was born with to slake their appetites? People that are insecure, that are not confident do that. just the other day someone came out to me saying that they have been fake the entire time because they thought they were boring. once i started talking to them when they were true to themselves, though, i began to appreciate them more. they weren't trying too hard. they showed to me that they were capable of having their own opinions, beliefs and thoughts about things and were not afraid to flesh them out. that is confidence. of course their opinions agreed less with mine, but that didn't make them any less of a person. it proved to me that they aren't a robot. the same goes with yes-men.

always be true to yourself. don't conform to what others think just to please them, be honest, don't lie--life will always find a way for the honest person. they are the winners.

The affirmation of his own ignorance is the starting point of Socrates' philosophy. Simply put, we don't know everything. And age is a good indicator of that. 

At age 1-18: you don't know anything. you are functionally retarded. most relationships within these years won't mean anything in the long run. your brain has yet to develop, along with your tastes, likes and dislikes. high school kids don't know shit.

18-23: Pre-adult phase. Once you go to college, or move away, you are starting to be an adult. If you aren't, you have only just started to figure out what it means. "Don't start making big life decisions, mainly because you don't know enough about life to make good ones. You are still young, go out and experience the world, take small risks, see everything you can, be with a lot of different people. This the time you really need to try everything so you can figure out who you are, it is not a time to settle down and figure out the future path of your life."

23-28: Adult. You are out of school and working, or maybe in graduate school. You are much more sure of who you are and what you want from life. You have gained some experience. Although you aren't making the same mistakes in your early 20's, you still quite aren't ready for what life is throwing at you.

28 and beyond: Grow up. By now you should have at least picked your career and be started in it, perhaps be in a serious committed relationship and have made some major life decisions.

But the bottom line is this: you don't know everything.