Do you feel that changing yourself comes at a bigger cost?

[Jerry Maguire]

Don't you feel that if you're a 'nice guy', which I see myself as, don't you feel that changing yourself into a different person (removing some or all of the 'nice guy' qualities you have) is helping you in attracting women, but detracting in making you less happy? The way I see it, I'm unhappy when I'm nice to people and don't attract attention, yet I'd be unhappy if the only reason I attract attention is because I've changed my nice attitude.
I mean, sure, you want to attract a lot of girls and have sex with them, but surely doing that again and again makes you feel empty? Or when you've attracted the girl of your dreams and desperately want her to appreciate you for what you really are, rather than an image of what 'all the girls want', doesn't that sound depressing?

I'm not sure what I'm getting at, but I think it's that I wish I could attract people just by being myself, but obviously that's not going to happen.

Perhaps I'm adverse to changing myself because I'm afraid of extending my comfort zone, because I'm comfortable in non-social interaction (even though it makes me depressed).
What do you think?

People who have changed, could you please reply? All you nice guys, who have changed your personality, do you still feel yourself, but better? Or do you feel empty and that the image of yourself that you're portraying isn't really you?

This is pretty deep stuff but I'm at a difficult time of my like, I'm 17 and I'm finally maturing. Maybe it's the way that I am, but I'm looking for a philosophy to guide me through life. I'm looking for a formula that I can apply time and time again, but maybe there is no philosophy, maybe we just have to do what feels right each time we come to make a decision. But even then, that's a philosophy (to take each decision as it comes). This is a quandry, can you help me out?

 

[PeoplesChamp]

Not to get into a philosphical debate but in the words of the Green Goblin in Spiderman "We are who we choose to be." Of course I might be biased sense I am an existentialist to the core but we all have a choice in who we are. We also have a choice in whether we recognize our ability to choose. So this idea that by consciously choosing to change is not "being yourself" is absolutely crap. We are all human and we all are who we are. Besides the framework of being human, we can be anything we want. When you try something new or different from your previous patterns of behavior it feels arkward not because it is incongruent with some bs western construct titled "the self" but because it isn't famaliar. However over time, of course, this changes. It parallel to when anyone adopts a new social role.

Example: you have a kid. Prior to having a kid, you did not have one. Now you are a father. In order to incorporate that role into your psyche you must start ACTING like a father. Does this mean you aren't being yourself? Of course this very question seems absurd. but then why isn't this notion of "just be yourself" also viewed logically absurd. Think about it long and hard.

Life is about change. Everyone who is here, myself included, is here to improve with women. This purpose is based on the undeniable premise that we are/were not satisfied with how we handle women before. It's the a priori argument for the existent of this site.

So I say quit bumbling around with this western-individualism nonsense of "just be yourself" or "do your own thing." It sounds more like mindless consumer culture indoctrination than anything else.

My gift to you...

 

[Lifeforce]

I'm a 20 year old computer geek. I can pull girls when I am myself and you can do it too if you feel like it and improve.

I've been in the spot you are right now. I had some success but I started to wonder. If I had success, then why did it feel so wrong, it didn't feel like me like something I wanted to be. Why should I become something others want me to be at sosuave. Who want to become an empty shell of a perfect man?

Be yourself but learn to recognize what YOU want to change with yourself, not what people here tell you is right. Girls don't want the same things, they are all different and this is a very important lesson to learn. Imagine yourself with a hot body, a nice car, socialy adapted and living your life (an example of what to improve). That will get you ****loads of girls. They will literally jump at you.

 

[Visceral]

That "self" that you think you're going to lose or betray is just your ego, a mental image of yourself that is just the sum of your memories. It's real only in that it's you're generating it for you to follow.

That's not who you are. Who you are is the flesh and blood that's reading this. In a few minutes, you might be someone else. When you're doing like a DJ, you are a DJ; when you're doing like an AFC, you are an AFC. The contradiction is only in your mind, the result of your ego-image being different than your true self at that particular moment (since your true self changes every moment).

The sense of discomfort that you describe is simply being aware of how your actions don't reflect your ego-image, and the desire to resist and conform to your ego-image is just you having confused the ego-image with your true self.

Ironically, what most guys here call "becoming your true self" is really just the process of new experiences being incorporated into the ego-image. One man's idea of himself as a DJ is just as much ego as another man's idea of himself as a piece of sh!t. The fear and hesitation disappear only because your true self (flesh and action) now exists in accordance with the modified ego.

To truly break free from the ego, you have to realize that the true self is not what you think you are, but only what you are and what you are doing - "There is only flesh and the patterns to which we submit it." Pinhead, Hellraiser III.

Granted, this takes long enough that it's faster to just use willpower and, through your actions, force the ego to integrate the new patterns, at which point they will become natural enough.

Also, like you say, the ego defends itself, or rather mistaking the ego for your true self will cause you to fear the defiance, changing, and (if you're lucky) eventual destruction of the ego the way you would fear physical death. Just remember, who you are is what you do, not who you think you are. That little voice saying "What are you doing? This isn't you!" is just your ego, and if you read between the lines, what it's really saying is: "What are you doing? This isn't me!"