From preschool to high school we have been told to “be yourself,” or “be who you are”. But what do those saying even mean? Does it mean to say exactly what you are thinking, or not to model yourself after someone else? Could it mean to act only according to your genetic traits and not let anything influence you?

I’ll be honest I don’t believe in “Being yourself” .I believe in becoming a better person.

Before you come after me with torches and pitchforks, let me clarify. I am not saying that we should strive to become like our favorite pop star or sports athlete. What I am saying is that we should all be striving to become a better person, and there is nothing wrong with using a role model to achieve this.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not perfect. I have my faults, just as anyone else, but doesn’t it make us human to try to fix them? Let me give a couple examples.

If your grades are slipping because you’re getting a little lazy, you should try to change your character to become a little more hardworking. Or, if you find yourself accidentally hurting someone’s feelings because of what you said, you might want to be a little more cautious of what you say. No one is perfect, but it doesn’t mean we can’t strive for perfection.

I also don’t see the problem with modeling some of your life after someone else. I still have my role models, whose examples I try to follow, and I wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t model a bit of my life after them. For instance, I have always admired the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi who lead a peaceful revolution in India, I have even taken some his lessons to heart such as an “eye for an eye makes the world go blind.”

Of course, who you choose to be your role model can be of debate, if you chose someone like Adolf Hitler or Mao Zedong, then some people my get upset.

In my mind the present happens too fast for us to “be who we are”. By the time we have even figured out who we are, that person is really only who we have been. I believe a person is defined by who they are striving to become, not by who they are or who they have been.