[unknownus3r]

Strongly disagree. While “alter ego” helps short term it just delays the reckoning and imposter syndrome for later and leads to identity issues and confusion. Take the hard path in the present and watch it get easier later

[dQw4w9WgXcQ]

> leads to identity issues and confusion

I was going to agree with you, but what do you define as identity here? Aren't people really a collection of hundreds of thousands of various spirits they have encountered and chosen to imitate? Most primarily their parents/siblings and beyond that spirits from friendships, books, religious study, movies/TV, music, etc. All of these are mini alter egos and shape an overall dynamic.

At the core one could argue there's that baseline "chooser" identity which is fairly set in stone and has predisposed traits based on some initial nature/nurture settings.

[blueflow]

What you noticed is correct, the concept of "identity" is constructed. Stop caring who or what you actually are and you gain like, several new dimensions of freedom and agency.

[softfalcon]

Yeah, what you say makes sense. Pretending you’re something else can be detrimental for a lot of folks.

I’m not going to say the article is wrong either though. Some folks need to pretend they’re something before they graduate to the level of actually living the ideals they want for themselves. Everyone is different.

In my opinion, at least for me, what you are saying is the long game truth though. The people I meet who are truly at peace with themselves and live with a quiet acceptance of who they are, seem to do exactly what you say.

These folks make the hard decisions necessary to define for themselves who they want to be. This is difficult but forces them to accept who they are and what actions they take.

I’m sure some folks will say, “well that’s just a multifaceted person playing many roles”. However, I think there is merit in what you’re saying. Reducing a strong character down to “many roles” seems almost disingenuous when that person might think of their actions and person as singular.

I think what you say accepts people as who they are and holds them accountable as such, without masks or personas, for better or worse.

[stephen_g]

I think it depends on the context. If you're a talented musician or you want to do stand up comedy or something it can be super useful to pretend to be a more confident version of yourself while you're performing. It goes on, you perform, it comes off. I've found the more you perform, the less you have to pretend and eventually you can just can be confident (it's basically just exposure therapy), but it's hard to bridge the gap to get up at all. And that's not even mentioning what actors do, where it's expected that they're pretending to be a character!

Obviously if you were consciously putting on an act to appear to be a completely different person just for a relationship, or all day, every day at work then that's not healthy.