They don’t want you to be yourself, they want a filtered self.
I have already made it clear why I hate the typical motivational quotes. When you hear BE YOURSELF, as useful as it is people usually take it in many different ways.
For me being yourself is not being against or being ignorant of the opinions others have of you. It means being aware of your influences and keep a healthy detachment from them, whether they are your friends, literature, the people you consider mentors, etc.
Because technically it’s impossible to be yourself because to be yourself you need to have complete free will, but we don’t. We are constrained by wherever we were meant to belong or wherever we choose to belong.
I am not going to blame it on the system, I am aware of the system, I am just trying to make it in it. Because succeeding within a constrained environment is intelligence.
For your information here are some definitions of intelligence:
Google: The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills
merriam-webster.com: (1) The ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations. (2) The ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria.
dictionary-cambridge.org: The ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason.
collinsdictionary.com: intelligence is the ability to think, reason, and understand instead of doing things automatically or by instinct.
SKETCHMAN BORIS 