"Be yourself" may not be a good advice, it is nevertheless helpful to say it, but only if you really mean it.

Perhaps, people generally have a somewhat stable "self" that they revert to when they are not under stressful conditions. I know, I can hang around with a bunch of people for an afternoon, but I can't do that day after day. Perhaps, that's what is meant by "character is who you are when nobody's watching"; it is the equilibrium position, the position that requires minimal effort to sustain. And change requires a great deal of external effort, because it is very tempting to revert back to old habits.

So why do people want to change themselves if it requires so much effort to do so? Perhaps it's because they are placed in stressful situations so often that they forget who they normally are or what they would like to do. It is not too unlikely actually, since there are so many other things to think about. Another possibility, which I think sounds more plausible, is that they want to avoid being stressed by adapting to the stress. Some forms of stress are caused by a lack of ability, and these can be relieved by honing these abilities. For instance, studying is a way to relieve academic stress. And for me, honing social abilities was a way to relieve this stress.

I admit that for a large part of my life I have tried to avoid stressful situations by avoiding stressful situations, but I guess army really forced me to change because I was with people all the time and I realised how relationships are important. I went out with people more often. I initiated conversations with new people. Stuff that are slightly out of my comfort zone. But being forced into stressful situations is not enough to change. I needed to know how to change.

I started small. I remembered the awkward situation when I offered someone tissue when he was still eating. That guy said it was ok, but I still felt bad. So the next time, I remembered when to offer tissue, which logically was after one have finished his/her food, right? That didn't come naturally to me. And I did so until it became natural. This small gesture took me a bit of practice. Then, one another occasion when I was eating with someone, he kept his tissue right away after he finished his food, then he offered me his tissue, looking a little sheepish. I thanked him, but at that point I realised that during that awkward situation, that guy probably really meant it when he said "it's ok."

So perhaps people are actually quite forgiving, but sometimes I can't help but feel that someone else looks a little awkward doing something. And I would ask myself if I seemed like that. I guess there are certain body postures or gestures that convey a certain message about yourself, and some of them just leave a bad impression. And I found myself looking at glass panes more often. Self-consciousness ensues. But generally, I've found that keeping your back straight and not looking down gives a better posture. (And I gotta admit, all that military drills helped a little.) But actually, I realise that while slouching is bad posture and may not leave a good first impression, after a while when you know a person's work ethic, you don't notice the slouching any more.

Then there are little little things. My mother sometimes told me, "When someone is talking to you, look at him in the eye." I guess it made me look distracted. I practised. So now, by default, I would look at a person in the right eye whenever I talk to someone. (It's always the right eye because I practised with that and now I'm used to it.) But now you don't really know if I'm listening to what you are saying, I don't see myself becoming more attentive to what people are saying anyway, so that kinda defeats the purpose of the exercise.

I have no idea if this works, but I'm taking more notice of my own and others' body posture. Plunging myself into various awkward scenarios gave me plenty of practice. I notice how I feel, I notice what I look like, and I try to adjust to something that looks more natural. Ok, it was hard the first time, so at some other occasion I tried to notice how I feel in a natural setting, and I'd replicate that. So after a while, I kinda related my posture to my feelings, and I extrapolate it to other people. I'm not sure if it works, but I guess it gives me a kinda indication of whether someone is feeling awkward in my presence, or whether I have made a mistake or something. Generally, it seems that people don't notice my mistakes as often as I used to think they do. Maybe it's not a mistake after all.

There are other small little things like how to behave in a mall, which required some practice too, but the general thing I found out is that, people don't really notice or care about your mistakes very much, and nobody is really sure of what the right thing to do is.

I suppose most people probably went through this self-conscious phase like 7 years before I did, but I probably entered it with a somewhat different perspective. It kinda helps to have read some books, and I guess KI was a good primer to them. This journey of being self-conscious and realising that actually I need not be so worried after all is probably trivial and commonplace, but I think it has been rather significant to me. This experience has told me that being myself doesn't necessarily entail feeling awkward all the time. It has given me the reason to have faith that I'm okay.

"Be yourself." probably means "I think that you are fine the way you are". It is comforting to hear it from people who matter to you, because it is a strong expression of approval - that I have either changed enough, or that I never really needed to be so concerned after all. But say it only if you really mean it, because being yourself is not easy when the self is under so much pressure to change.