Being true

I have heard the advice frequently given, "Be true to yourself." Socrates is many times credited with saying this although his literal words in translation were, "Know yourself." Shakespeare put the words in the form of advice from his Hamlet character Polonius when bidding bis son farewell. His exact advice was, "To thine own self be true, and it will follow as the night the day, thou canst then be false to no man."

Call it wisdom of the ages, I guess. But the same advice is still being given. However, competing advice is also heard these days in the form of, "Consider the audience and act accordingly," and "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face."

While it is important in daily interaction to listen and not to be offensive, it is still good to stand for your own beliefs, make every effort to achieve your own goals, and stand alone sometimes , not acquiescing,  when you have more knowledge of something than others or when you know your own desires better than others who only think they know you well. An exception is when you have expressed your desires to someone else so that they know you as well as you know yourself. But that kind of transparency is rare, as rare as the true beauty of the person with whom the transparency is a shared commodity.