As Kermit the Frog in his Maryland commencement speech said, Jim Henson took people for "what they are":

https://www.youtube.com/live/hLFa8zGeotI?feature=shared&t=74...

Do NOT "fake it until you make it". Be yourself. And find people who accept you as you are.

This is semantic baggage to me. Identity is best loosely held, and it's mostly determined by our actions. There's no real faking, just acting in accordance to, or against, one's preferences.

Colloquially when people use the term "fake it till you make it" they don't really mean "pretend to be a different person". They just mean act in the face of uncertainty. You can do it with or without undeserved confidence, it's besides.

I tend to agree with you, but there’s another saying: “play to your strengths”, because people don’t all have the same potentials. I think it’s healthy to always strive for self improvement, but going with the grain of one’s personality is easier and likely to land in a better place. That’s the message I take from “be yourself”, but I have to admit that it does ring a bit hollow when one is young and hungry.

Which is easier in a denser population.

> or the mediocre advice of an overbearing parent

For what it's worth, I teach my students not to listen to their parents, because while most parents want the best for their children, without doubt, their assumptions are typically outdated, and were probably already wrong when they were young.

As categorical guidance, that seems like a problematic thing to teach. First, parents don’t know everything, but they know their kids and have witnessed their journey, so they have a unique perspective to offer. Second, parents will begin to (justifiably!!) grow suspicious of your institution and develop resentment, which is a serious structural problem.

Hopefully what you mean is something like you teach them to think critically about their parents advice as one input among many, understanding where the advice comes from and its inherent strengths and flaws.

My personal experience is my parents’ advice was almost universally bad. Fortunately they still supported my own decisions. I still find it frustrating talking to them about my goals/issues as their takes are extremely irrelevant to my situation

For what it's worth, I teach my children not to listen to their teachers, because while most teachers want the best for their students, without doubt, their assumptions are typically outdated, and were probably already wrong when they were young.

Yikes.