system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The advice "don't change who you are" can be harmful and counterproductive.

I'm aware that I probably think about this advice in a more literal sense but imo to tell someone that they shouldn't change implies that they're good enough and don't need to continue growing. I firmly believe that it should be a basic human goal to constantly learn, grow, and be a better version of yourself then yesterday, which in my mind involves constant and/or progressive change.

I see this advice most often when people are struggling with things like depression or anxiety. The way I see it, aside from the clinical levels of these condition, the best solution to overcome depression or anxieties is to change yourself and grow. I believe that these symptoms are your brains way of screaming at you to be different because its not happy with its current state and if you're being honest with yourself in moments of hardship, you'll know exactly what you want to change about yourself.

For example, if you're struggling with social anxiety, you can often narrow down the causes to a few things like lack of self esteem/confidence, fear of not knowing what to say or not having anything "good enough" to say, as well as a few others but I'm gonna stick with these for my example. If social anxiety is becoming an issue for you and you want to move past it, my belief is that the best way to overcome it is to be completely honest with yourself during your moments of anxiety. These anxious thoughts might lead you to think have nothing to say. Rather then telling the person with social anxiety that they're fine or "its all in their head", I think it'd be much more effective if this person made the effort to change their usual habits and take the time to learn about the things others are interested in. For guys, sports are usually a decent topic of conversation that you can pull out of your ass but if you have it in your head that "you're fine the way you are and you shouldn't change for the sake of others" then you aren't helping anyone, especially yourself. Yeah sports may not be your thing, but putting in the effort to learn about sports could be a tangible first step to overcoming social anxieties.

To add on to the advice of "don't change", people often follow it up with something like "you'll find people who love you just the way you are". Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but from my experience, the chances are incredibly low. A more proactive solution would be to adapt yourself to the people around you and this way, your problems are in *your* hands, not in the hands of some random fated encounter. Now I'd like to stress that I don't mean to suggest that you should fundamentally change who you are, that would probably cause other issues, but I really think you should have a willingness to change yourself.

One of the main reasons I believe in this is just by observing how damaging an unchanging mindset can be. What do you think anti vaxxers are doing? They're believing in who they are and refusing to change while disregarding scientific evidence. Politicians in the USA are incredibly old and stuck in their boomer ways. They refuse to adapt with modern times so we need to do something as ridiculous as organizing large scale protests to tell these stubborn donkeys that discriminating based on skin color is wrong. Most of all, I see too many people in my communities (mostly gaming and anime and reddit) talking about their emotional issues while effectively doing nothing about it but whine to other people. I hear people say "you're fine just the way you are" way too often when it's blatantly not true. There are so many things that people are struggling with that requires some level of change within themselves but saying "you don't need to change who you are" might enable them to continue the lifestyle that led them to their issues in the first place.

I understand the value of staying true to yourself but it's just as important to listen to the harshest voices in your head and see them not as something that will bring you down but rather your instincts telling you what you want to change about yourself in order to be happy with yourself.

TLDR: people should strive to constantly grow, change, adapt, and be a better version of themselves then yesterday. Suggesting that an individual "shouldn't change" can very often lead people to continue the same cycles that brought them down in the first place. You can get through struggles like depression or anxiety, but having a willingness to change and actively doing things will help you *overcome* these struggles and make you a stronger person. Rather then telling someone who's feeling depressed that "they should be happy with who they are", dig deeper into the thoughts that go into their depression and tell them to actively do things to make themselves *believe* that their own negative words aren't true based on the effort they put in to make it untrue. To claim that you dont need to change who you are is peak arrogance imo.


Edit: first of all thank you guys for your responses. Tbh more then cmv I just kinda wanted to talk about this but of course I'll still throw out deserved deltas. there's a lot of comments about how people just take the advice in the wrong way. I 100% agree that misinterpretation is most likely the reason people take it in the literal and negative way that I suggested. But imo, having been a victim of misinterpreting this for myself, I still think the message is better off changed because, at least in my world, I see the misinterpretation a bit too much. Speaking from personal experience, it's really easy to say "I'm fine just the way I am" only to eventually realize that this is just an excuse to allow myself to stagnate.
gpt
Are you sure that there are very many people, let alone a significant number, who interpret the largely cliche of a phrase "don't ever change" in the manner that you do? 

It seems far more likely to me that many, if not most people. fully understand the phrase exactly how it's intended: they aren't being advised to never grow, mature, or evolve as people. They are being told they have valuable qualities that they should treasure and hold onto while the inevitable process of growth and changing that life puts all of us through keeps happening.