There are at least five big lies we have been hearing throughout our lives over and over that somehow evolved into being accepted as axiomatic truisms, when they are anything but the truth. The sooner we abandon them, the more authentic we will become with others and with ourselves. Here is that short yet evil list of lies you should abandon, and the sooner the better:
1. “You Should Just Be Yourself”
This is a typical lazy excuse for the laziest among the lazy to remain where they are today and not bother to get out of their comfort zone in order to grow and become better in any direction. As soon as you suggest change to their behavior and lifestyle, they become extremely defensive, turning the guns on you and telling you all about how much work you could do to become better. The common excuse for rejecting your advice is that they want to remain true to themselves, and they don’t want to be something they are not. Apparently becoming stronger, better and smarter is somehow equivalent to betraying your values and principles in their book.
2. “You Should Not Be Judging Anyone”
Why not? Weren’t we given brains precisely for that reason – to form opinions, judge, criticize and admire with equal passion? Judgment is the source of much, if not all, progress. If we weren’t unhappy with something and didn’t do anything about it, we would see no progress of any kind.
Lets also admit it – judging is fun. Going out to a place where there is no one to look at and no one to talk shit about would not be all that much fun either. The reason that all the ridiculous reality television has such a mass appeal is because we all love judging and talking shit about others. I don’t know if the true reason for this is that observing others’ embarrassing behavior makes us feel better about who we are, or there is more to the story, but the bottom line is that it’s such a huge industry for a reason. It draws massive attention.
3. “If You Are Lacking Confidence, Fake it Till You Make It”
This is more BS. Any person with the most basic intuition will recognize the attempts at trying to fake confidence as awkward, lame and kind of Napoleon Dynamite-ish. Having real confidence requires real reasons to be proud of who you are. You don’t have to be a millionaire or the best looking person in your city to be confident, but you need to have some kind of accomplishments to be proud of and have that pride translate into a more confident posture, body language and overall demeanor in order to exude real confidence.
4. “Appearances Don’t Matter; It’s the Inside that Counts”
Appearance does matter. It always did, and it always will. From people’s bodies and faces, to cars, shoes, furniture, and architecture – how things look matters a lot, and there is no way around it. I assure you that the reason that Nespresso machines sell is not because they make such an incredible coffee (they really don’t), but because they look slick and they make the kitchen look prettier and more hip.
It doesn’t mean that substance is not important or that it is less important than what’s on the surface, but discounting the value of how something or someone looks is both false and hypocritical. We all care about looks. Find me a girl who accuses men of being superficial, and I will remind her about how she said once that she wasn’t interested in a guy because his belt didn’t match his shoes. Find me a guy who accuses women of being superficial, and I will remind him how he rushed to upgrade his I-phone for no good reason whatsoever.
5. “Normal is Boring”
No, it’s not. What makes someone or something boring is not that it’s normal or that it’s not shocking, but that it does not stimulate or provoke any thoughts or ideas. It is boring because it is simply not interesting. On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there who lead a “normal” lifestyle, who don’t try to stand out by dressing up like clowns, or covering their body with tattoos and piercings, and yet they are fascinating on so many levels. You don’t have to look like Nicky Minaj or Lil Wayne to be an interesting person. You don’t have to become vegan or join some weird club or a clan to be exceptional. And you don’t have to run away from your parents’ home to assert your one-of-a-kind individuality. You can look and act normal, just like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Roger Federer and Barack Obama, to name a few, and be anything but boring.
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Good post. That last lie especially rings true, and it’s connected to lie #4 and #2. If a person looks normal, then we judge him to be normal. As Machiavelli once noted, “the multitude tend to judge with their eyes”. That’s why people wearing flashy jewelry, clothes, or have tattoos are deemed interesting. Ironically, the most normal looking person can be the most interesting person.
Oddly enough i’ve mostly heard this fuckery out of the mouths of…..females, especially #2 until i figured women are all solipsistic and don’t want to be judged.
Biggest one I’ve heard from women is definitely the first one. As a beta male, I would ask advice from them on gaming a specific girl and they would say “Just be yourself and ask her out.” Obviously this shit didn’t work. I think they may subconsciously want to give you the wrong advice because they can’t bear a beta ever getting some action.
Biggest one I’ve heard from women is definitely the first one. As a beta male, I would ask advice from them on gaming a specific girl and they would say “Just be yourself and ask her out.” Obviously this shit didn’t work. I think they may subconsciously want to give you the wrong advice because they can’t bear a beta ever getting some action.
It is more that they are naturals at applying W.C. Fields’ Maxims:
Never give a sucker an even break and never smarten up a chump.
Would you rather hear, “burn all your clothes and replace them with custom tailored suits, get a better haircut, work out until you look like Captain America and get an interesting job that pays really well?”
yes. at that point in my life I needed the brutal truth.
True, 95% of people don’t really want to change, at least not if effort is involved. “Just be yourself” is what you hear the most because it suits most people (it doesn’t work but it’s easy).
Telling a guy who has it all wrong what he has done wrong from a woman’s perspective would be like telling a fat nasty hairy chick with a bad attitude and white trash behaviour aka hooney boo boo mother, what she is doing wrong. There is no way to do it without insulting the core being of the person. Which is hard to do.
I have once witness a girl be honest and tell a man he was not spontaneous enough for her (as why she didn’t like him), you know what his reaction was, you don’t know me, yes I am. He did not change. Usually its not worth it from the girls perspective. It almost never results in the man changing his behaviour.
“As a beta male, I would ask advice from them…” I think there is a Roissy maxim on never seeking advice from women. Some of us did such things and lived to regret it…
http://www.rooshv.com/womanly-advice
http://www.rooshv.com/never-listen-to-a-woman
be yourself is actually good advice and it works with women. cause guess what, your normal self around normal ppl (not chicks you are trying to impress) is not a wimpish, needy, lame, stuttering fool struggling desperately. they give the same advice in job interviews.
I don’t think you understood what they meant when they gave their advice. What females say mostly does not match up with what they mean. Likely they really meant “be confident and take the lead” but out their mouth came “just be yourself and ask her out.” Its tricky but instead of taking what a woman says as literal you have to read between damn near all the lines and understand what they feel and mean by what they say.
To be fair to women, the reason they gave you shitty advice is because you asked a fish on how to catch it. You’re a shark, you’re supposed to (ideally) know how.
True observation. It is mostly women that push these ridiculous lies. Sadly, it’s idiot men like us who believe them and internalize them. Trust me…women may preach these lies, but none of them believe them.
Yes this “BE YOURSELF” message is a bunch of lazy nonsense. And yes, this kind of fuckery always comes out of a woman’s mouth. When she says “be yourself”… just smile and say: “No. I’m going to be the man I always WANTED to be. Bye!”
When you really think about it…
99.999% of the time, that life NOT include HER.
You sir, like the author, are exhibiting way too much patriarchal oppression; or should I say fatherly male logic.
This will not do. In today’s age of anything goes, your ideas are harmful to others public image, and therefore, we must exert our “tolerance” and essentially jail you. Showing you how much we hate rape, by having those we disagree with see how much we hate it.
Truly, there is no truth. Individuality and knowledge are weakness, ignorance is strength. Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. And last but not least: “An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded ”
You shall not talk, or the beating will continue until morale improves.
Welcome to feminism son; now go back to your mother, my two hours of visitation are over.
I haven’t given the “Fake it till you make it” idea much thought, but you could see it this way:
People don’t have confidence because they don’t get the respect they need from others to feel that way. People also don’t respect them because they have no confidence. So if one were to fake their confidence, people would start respecting them, and they would gain actual confidence as a result.
This sort of worked for me when I was younger. There were many changes I went through but faking confidence, at least with girls, got me places for sure.
Roissy commented on this awhile back: “Confidence is the result of years of successful interaction with women. A man getting the love of women is a confident man. A man getting scorned is a doubtful man. Confidence is not some abstract, nebulous ephemera that alights like cosmic dust on a man who wills it into existence. Confidence is a manifest set of behaviors and attitudes that reflect a man’s inner emotional harmony. This emotional harmony is better known as “becoming alpha”. A man not getting what he wants in life can observe, learn, and mimic the behaviors of confident men until he starts experiencing the success he wants and his emotional state follows in accordance. There is no definition of confidence that doesn’t include these behaviors and attitudes.”
You have to start somewhere. A man with no accomplishments to fall back on has a chasm to cross that is impossible if he can’t “fake it” to some degree. In other words, he’ll never get there.
That is so damn true! I think every man should have some sort of role model that they strive to emulate until they’re confident enough to be their own man. It’s not necessary, but I think it would help a lot.
This is why it is important to tell your sons the truth and not let them be emasculated by the idealistic and soft dogma that they get from school, TV and women. Spend time with your sons.
I haven’t given the “Fake it till you make it” idea much thought, but you could see it this way:
People don’t have confidence because they don’t get the respect they need from others to feel that way. People also don’t respect them because they have no confidence. So if one were to fake their confidence, people would start respecting them, and they would gain actual confidence as a result.
This sort of worked for me when I was younger. There were many changes I went through but faking confidence, at least with girls, got me places for sure.
I should just be myself? Turns out, it was myself that women found actively repulsive. Too bad it took a very long time for me to figure this out. I just kept trying to be myself and kept waiting for the world to accept me in the way that I was promised. After all, I am beautiful no matter who I am, they are the wrong ones for refusing to accept me.
I changed who I was, and became the man I am today. A man with 40+ lays. And the man I am today quite clearly sees that the entire line I was fed was a lie, a deliberate destructive lie designed specifically to hurt men just like me. Fuck you, feminists. Fuck you from the bottom of my heart. You killed human joy, with malice aforethought.
Its kind of tricky.What we think of ‘myself’ keeps changing as we change. There is also this philosophical question about who really are? The best moments always comes when I forget myself in the moment…..now now enough of my psycho babble..
Good point. Besides, what does being yourself mean anyway? We act so differently with different people. Are we always ourselves or are we never ourselves?
I think there should really be a self that would react in a certain way when behaved to in a certain manner and also having a genuine perception towards things such as behaviors, ideas, incidents etc. However, owing to the fact that becoming socially successful is actually manipulating others, I’ve learnt that you will need to project yourself differently than what you really are. And this necessarily doesn’t mean that you’ve to conform to whatever crap they are doing or they expect from you.
“Be yourself” is not the worst advice if you’re already someone who loves himself to death and walks up to women saying “I know she’s attracted already.” If you’re 95% of the male population or unwilling to push yourself to new levels, then that advice is horrid.
A bit of a story here: I’m a college freshman, but I won’t say where (anonymity and all that). During high school, I SUCKED with girls. I sucked for a lot of reasons, but I won’t go into all of them. I was “myself,” and “being myself” didn’t work. Why? Because I was the blue pill embodied. I had been fed so much bullshit from the media and women/betas that I believed it. Then I decided “fuck it, this isn’t working.” I became a better version of myself. A far better version. One who took the red pill and pushes himself further than he ever did before.
Guess which version of me is happier, more secure, and enjoys life more.
“Be yourself” is not the worst advice if you’re already someone who loves himself to death and walks up to women saying “I know she’s attracted already.” If you’re 95% of the male population or unwilling to push yourself to new levels, then that advice is horrid.
A bit of a story here: I’m a college freshman, but I won’t say where (anonymity and all that). During high school, I SUCKED with girls. I sucked for a lot of reasons, but I won’t go into all of them. I was “myself,” and “being myself” didn’t work. Why? Because I was the blue pill embodied. I had been fed so much bullshit from the media and women/betas that I believed it. Then I decided “fuck it, this isn’t working.” I became a better version of myself. A far better version. One who took the red pill and pushes himself further than he ever did before.
Guess which version of me is happier, more secure, and enjoys life more.
I should just be myself? Turns out, it was myself that women found actively repulsive. Too bad it took a very long time for me to figure this out. I just kept trying to be myself and kept waiting for the world to accept me in the way that I was promised. After all, I am beautiful no matter who I am, they are the wrong ones for refusing to accept me.
I changed who I was, and became the man I am today. A man with 40+ lays. And the man I am today quite clearly sees that the entire line I was fed was a lie, a deliberate destructive lie designed specifically to hurt men just like me. Fuck you, feminists. Fuck you from the bottom of my heart. You killed human joy, with malice aforethought.
@ad rule1: Just being yourself is good if you stick to your rules, goals and be generally authentic. It’s crap if u use it as an excuse or out of cowardice.
1. “Being yourself” is difficult to do when you have no clue about what that “self” should look like and how it should act. That “self” is largely a construct from social conditioning, and good and bad experiences, with inborn traits mixed in. For the most part, “being yourself” means “act in a way that is agreeable to me so that I can quickly peg you as useful or irrelevant to my life and purpose.” Especially from women.
2. Indeed, we can’t help but judge. We wouldn’t survive if we didn’t judge, evaluate, discriminate, etc. Those who say they never judge are lying through their teeth.
3. “Faking it” can be helpful as far as training oneself to internalize the new habits and mindset that you want to have in the future. You can’t just turn on the charm, for example, if you’re not already halfway charming. You can turn on intelligence if you’re lacking it, or at least lacking curiosity and a willingness to learn.
5. “Normal” is relative. “Boring” shows a lack of creativity and thinking outside the box.
Crowding into a car with four friends, cruising one town over and spending an hour or so enjoying a game we lovingly called “heckling” was hands down my favorite past time during the not-so-salad-days of high school. It went like this:
Ride down Main Street and keep your eyes peeled for an unsuspecting pedestrian. Anyone will do. Identify the target, stop the car alongside them and begin “heckling”. Somewhat like you would heckle a comedian, except instead of heckling their jokes you heckle their life. And instead of a drunken, belligerent insult you deliver your cutting message/advice as calmly, as deadpan and as sincerely as possible.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Can you please stop for one moment. Thank you. Look, I know this sounds rude and maybe this is none of my business but I absolutely have to say this for the sake of the community.” (Take a deep breath like I’m thinking to myself This is a really tough thing to do, but I have no choice. Then look her in the eyes with total earnestness and say, “You are as fat as a fucking elephant seal after a twelve month penguin binge. Everyone’s talking about it. We see you walk your gelatinous ass up and down this sidewalk, everyday, in broad daylight, in front of innocent children when you could just as easily travel by alleyway. Ma’am, for the love of all that’s good and decent stay in the fucking alleys. That’s what they’re there for. Our tax dollars are paying for them. Please use them.”
And slowly drive away.
My friends and I were excellent actors, so, I’d say, 95% of people literally believed that the strange situation had nothing to do with 5 high school kids who thought being a random, drive-by asshole was the height of comedy. They actually believed we were so disgusted by the sight of them that we just had no choice. We had to apply the brakes and give some extremely honest criticism. Some people went into shock and just stared, mouth agape, and never responding with a single syllable as we drove away shaking our heads in disappointment.
Other people got real violent real quick. We had shoes, pop cans and skateboards thrown at our car with the intent to do bodily harm. One guy tried to dive headfirst in the driver’s side window of my friends Camry after he said, “Yo, dude. Come here for a sec. I saw you walking over there, and I can’t point my finger on why this is true, but you seem like biggest douche that’s ever taken a sip of water. Jesus Christ, are you a tool bag. I can’t figure out why, though. It’s killing me. And you know yourself better than anyone. So tell me, what is it about you that makes such a goddamn bone smack?”
He ran to his car and chased us through the country side for a few miles after he missed the window
“Heckling” is a great litmus test for confidence and peace-of-mind. When you’re happy with your life, drive-by put downs from a strangers mouth just make you laugh.
P.S.
I haven’t heckled in years and I don’t think I’d do it again. Heckling is one of those things like vandalism, petty theft, or trying with all your might to give your Spanish teacher a nervous break down that just makes sense when you’re sixteen and there’s testosterone dripping from your pours, but the older you get the less forgivable that kind of pointless savagery becomes.
My friends and I did the same thing in college.
welcome to Bakersfield
I agree with all of them except #3. People really don’t have magical powers, and can’t see into your brain to figure out whether your confidence is warranted or not. While I’m sure there are plenty of people who fake it poorly that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all. Its like saying no one ever believes lies, and basing your assertion on the existence of poor liars.
I think Feminists just replaced Christian Morality with Disney Morality. Toxic ideas like these are standard in children’s entertainment.
I’d add “Everyone is unique and special” to the list. Most people are mundane and predictable, especially in the ways they choose to prove they’re not.
If a woman tells you #2 or #4, tell her to prove her conviction by kissing the next bum you pass.
Having spent time in a post-Soviet country and with a post-Soviet fiancee, I can tell you that this is the central difference between our society and theirs. My fiancee grew up in a world where she was taught that no one was special, that anyone else could fill her role just as well as she could, that there was nothing she could do better than anyone else.
When people believe that there is nothing special or unique about them, they turn into sheeple just the way Lenin and Stalin needed them to be. They won’t think they can do better because they will know they can’t. They will simply conform because there is no other option.
i fervently agree with everything in this article,its blunt and full of truths small minded people dont want to beleive. just like to point out though that nespresso coffee is delicious, dont have one myself and wouldnt run out and buy one but have tried them and would accept a gift of one put it that way!
#1 I disagree with. People use this as a way of keeping their personality the same, anyone else is misusing it. I myself am a sadistic asshole and yet I’m also nice when people share my interests, and I always will be this way. If I have to change my personality in the slightest then I don’t want you in my life as a friend or fuck toy. Anyone using this excuse to not work out or gain knowledge is misusing it and really need a reality check.
First: It’s “fooling” not “fulling” (for God’s sake).
Second: Step away from the run-on sentence.
I don’t believe “fake it till you make it” is BS. There’s nothing wrong with thinking positive.
Thinking positive and faking confidence are two different things.
The criticism is wrong. In my experience, and my clients’, the answer is always “yes.” But if you’re a giant pussy then you can’t do that. If you are an internal pussy then the deterministic fact in your life is whether you can credibly appear confident while vomiting inside. Most people are too pussified to accomplish this. Anyone who accomplishing anything, who isn’t born into it, will pretend that they are a lock to succeed on project X, which just happens to be a standard deviation above what they can credibly lay claim to. Chances are they’ll succeed or be perceived to succeed, which is also a f(x) of a bluff.
I think the article has horrible advice, or, at least poorly communicated advice. I say this not conceptually. I witnessed the success of business development in a professional field of a mentor who was a nervous mess but nobody could tell. And those skills, I’ve learned, and they work. Eventually, yeah, you’re money and you know it. But if you don’t pretend you’re the man then you’ll never be the man, unless you’re Lebron James, who was the man at age 16.
Also, #5 is horseshit. Being normal is ok for investment banking or some other institutional profession. Outside of that, you need to get noticed. That means figuring out your angle and doing it. You will lose some buyers but you’re gain a loyal following.
Normal is basically == being a douchbag. Ohh, I drive a Honda or a 328. I’m a financial analyst, or a consultant or doctor or whatever. I’m just a guy. Great. That works if you’re with Goldman and the institution you are in has tremendous competitive advantage. But short of that, you need a brand, and you cannot have a brand that is called “coal.”
OT but Roosh, you have made main stream media here in Australia.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/member-of-roosh-v-forum-makes-world-map-of-easy-to-bang-women/story-fnet0gly-1226743290084
Worst post on ROK really … have you even thought twice before writing this bs? BTW, I am a fan of ROK …
Feel free to submit your “so so” post as example of what should be viewed here.
All true,except the last one.Normal is boring indeed.Its the male version of “appearances don’t matter,its the inside that counts”,it makes you boring guys happier just like it appearance shit makes ugly girls happier.
It’s not enough to be yourself. We ought to strive to become the best version of ourselves that we can be. This is not the same as trying to be someone who you are not, aka being a try-hard.
Violence doesn’t solve anything = bullshit, it is the purest form of solution. That fact that the government uses force/violence proves this, it is just one form of violence that is acceptable.
Yeah, violence sure solved the Nazis and Napoleon!!!! They weren’t defeated because we sent them Christmas cards or had group therapy.
This is funny. I usually come to this side to have a good laugh and remind myself of who the enemy is but, apparently, I completly agree with this article.
Oh, and there’s something else I wanted to write down even though it hasn’t to do anything with this article. I came to the conclusion that you guys are pretty much vulgar feminists trapped in men’s bodies. the logic is the same (just from the different side of the shore). it proves the theory that we hate those most who resemble ourselves.
(don’t even try to argue with me since I won’t answer because you lack the slightest capability for logical thinking or self reflection. You’re lost. You have created yourselves a self-contained view of the world and theres’ no way to irritate it. in a certain way it does work out for you and that’s fine. I have not the intention to change it but rather wanted to make a remark for those who read this side for the same reason as I do.)
excuse my poor Englisch, I’m neither british nor American.
“I came to the conclusion that you guys are pretty much vulgar feminists trapped in men’s bodies.”
I came to the conclusion that you’re a female or pretty much a vulgar misandrist trapped in a man’s body.
You must be German or perhaps Austrian or Swiss, judging by your spelling of “Englis[c]h”.
And I think you meant, “Feminists are men in women’s bodies.”
Wald
yup, German autocorrect. (english -> englisch) where there any other sings that made it obvious? I’d like to improve my sentence structure.
and no, I meant what I wrote (or maybe you were just trying to reverse my logic – then sorry for taking it literally)
where = were.
Aviva is of course Israeli. Aviva, I love Israel, but you must accept that the situation (especially in Tel Aviv) is dire. Is one of the countries where men need to do online dating to get some, and then the dates feel like job interviews (which car do you have, if you have your own apartment in Tel Aviv, etc). “Gender Studies” (Feminism in fact) is a BA in the Universities there, lots of women act like men, local men get completely nerdy and closed, or go the other way and act ghetto (what in Israel is called “Arsim”).
All of these points are strong arguments against Libertarianism.
How so?
there are no strong arguments against Libertarianism. Certainly, no moral ones. Consequentialist wise, eh, never heard one. Everyone is better off without moral hazard and reverse Darwinism except the bottom 2%, which Libertarians are happy to help. We have no sympathy for subsidies for the bottom 60%.
There are a grip against being a pussy, socialist, fascist, or moral-majority nutjob. They ought to be self evident. If not, you’re in one of those groups.
Have you actually seen Libertarianism post Ron Paul? Go to Sex and the State and start checking your privilege.
#4–Appearances count.
Very true, your appearance often reflects who you are on the inside. Someone who is fat and constantly reeks of weed, or a chick that dresses like a ho, probably have no self-control.
Fake it til you make it is entirely legitimate and has a solid scientific basis behind it.
Got me through music school, and is the law of the land in any sort of creative field.
The first 4 lies are what directly led me into 12 frustrating years of abject failure with women, friendzoning and a waste of my sexual prime.
Tis better to wake up late than never.
I completely agree with #1. If a guy has bad habits and a bad attitude, he should try to improve them if he wants any success in life.
This is my first look at your content, and I love it! The only minor point (perhaps correction) I would make is that I never became a vegan to be “exeptional”. Nor I think, did any of the other vegans I know.
One thing I did do was to assess a number of commonly accepted lifestyle paradigms; and judged them harmful to my personal interests and of the entire ecosystem on which we all depend.
This is my first look at your content, and I love it! The only minor point (perhaps correction) I would make is that I never became a vegan to be “exeptional”. Nor I think, did any of the other vegans I know.
One thing I did do was assess a number of commonly accepted lifestyle paradigms; and judged them harmful to my personal interests and of the entire ecosystem on which we all depend.
Each pair of rabbits produces circa 30 more rabbits; annually.
Do the math.
Re-do the English.
What are you trying to say?
What’s your point?
it’s impossible not to be yourself. that’s the big secret no one gets. other than that, it’s an ok list.
Great article. Love it.
eh, nothing new here. not one of the best articles on this site. really interesting site btw
The line between where you should really understand and accept social standards and where you should not conform and give into what crap others think and do, sometimes blurs and thats the most challenging shit for those who are into improving themselves.