Does ‘Be Yourself’ Make You Better — or Worse?

“My parents were Nazis,” she said. “And they taught me to be authentic.”

I was taken aback. What did she mean?

We were talking in a church youth group, and she explained that she had later turned away from the ideology she had grown up with.

Being authentic – being true to yourself – was something I believed in deeply. How could such an ideal be connected to Nazism?

As she went on to describe her parents’ worldview, I remember thinking: this sounds a bit like Nietzsche – the emphasis on unlimited self-assertion, contempt for inhibition and moral constraints, the “will to power.” I began to see how such ideas could fit together.

What does it really mean to “be authentic”? Many understand it as giving free rein to one’s feelings and not holding them back. With such an interpretation, even an SS officer might have believed he was living “authentically” and “honestly.” Without an ethical North Star, authenticity easily collapses into cruelty.

But it can also mean something very different: living in alignment with one’s values and convictions. It means becoming a well-integrated person whose thoughts, emotions, and actions pull in the same direction – someone with the inner strength to resist not only external pressure, but also one’s own impulses.

Both of these views are called authentic.

Here we face a fork in the road, leading in radically different directions.

The question is not only which path feels more appealing and liberating, but where each path ultimately leads.

The next time someone urges you “to be true to yourself” ask for clarification. True to what, exactly? To a passing feeling or to good values? Is it an excuse to offload raw impulses? Or is it about being true to what is true?

At a deeper level, it becomes a question of identity. Who do you want to be when you are yourself?

Some choose wisely, others choose poorly.

''Be yourself' is arguably the most popular piece of self-help advice in the world. It came as a small shock to me that authenticity can have a dark side. 

A few years later, I was hit by an even greater shock. I witnessed firsthand the tragic consequences of unrestrained passions. In the opening chapter of Adventures and Reflections, I describe my experiences during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Excerpts from the book:

These experiences forced me to ask a deeper question: How do we find the better path and avoid the dangerous one? I explore it in my second book, Faustian Bargain, No Thanks. You’re warmly invited to join this journey of discovery. You can read it for free here – or, if you prefer, get your own printed copy.

Start with the Introduction (reading time: 10–15 minutes). It offers an overview of the ideas explored in the book.