The false self, again

Isn't it the case that the ones who say “Be yourself” are the least of all to know how to do that?

Like, you can't learn courage by parroting motivational quotes . You learn it by going on the extreme end of both courage and cowardice. Then you know what's worth the risk and what is not. Because cowardice will cost you morality, and courage will cost you safety. Someone who knows every choice will be costly either way often doesn't go around telling strangers what they should do. Since you then will have to live with the responsibility for someone else's bad outcomes. Who would want that?

Who are already “be themselves” would understand that being fully themselves without adjusting to different environments is a bad idea all around. I'm not 5. Can't rely on my mom to threaten my classmates anymore. Of course, not being fully myself also costs me being seen as a human and keeping relationships at a superficial level.

The false self is not problematic for its existence. And normally it's there to serve necessary needs, like job security or social safety. It becomes problematic when it can't be integrated with other traits, or when people refuse to recognize us as a full-body person.

One attempt to solve this problem is compartmentalization. All of your traits will be seen, but each by different groups of people. Sort of a low risk, low reward situation. Still better than not being seen at all.

Another attempt is to introduce several positive traits to gain acceptance. Then later reveal less popular traits. This is actually how most normal relationships go, and it's effective most of the time. Only if you are not too different from the majority of your culture or class or gender. Most people don't use splitting defense, they are capable of seeing people as 3 dimensional. But when your differences are on the extreme end of all the traits, success rate goes down significantly.