hmmmmmmm, interesting question. "be yourself", clearly we all know that means live your own life, do what you want, don't follow the crowd, blah blah blah, right up there with popular phrases like follow your passion or do what you love and the money will follow, blah blah blah. It is interesting that they tell you that and at the same time some cultures de-value certain qualities that individuals might have. Unfortunately even the most independent of us are not completely immune to our cultural values. And what about the negative sides of ourselves, we all have a natural talent for certain vices and some of those vices are encouraged by the culture. I suppose if you want to venture out into more "spiritual" interpretations, you could say to follow your particular calling or mission or whatever. I initially, on this level, I would say that being yourself, would be to follow your instincts, your natural programming, at least the positive side of it, but who is to say what is positive and what is not, some people want to be writers and those they know, think that is a waste of time, they should have taken that marketing job with the lipstick company, but the writer thinks that isn't valuable because he feels it is feeding into narcissism and sexism with women's preoccupation with changing their features. So I guess, one would decide or let culture decide what is bad, suppress that and enhance positive natural qualities. I like to think of it from a natural perspective. The wolf contributes to the environment, not by trying to be an elk or a coyote or a bobcat, it is a wolf, carries out its instincts and by doing fits properly into the natural order of its ecosystem and not only fits in, but improves it, just by being a wolf. So I like to think by being yourself, you fit into your ecosystem or the world ecosystem and make significant contributions by following these instincts that are deemed positive. It is like a chain effect. But take it further, could be yourself be things that are at the core of humanity, creativity, a need for relationships, etc.... those huge linking core characteristics and to stick with the spiritual stuff, shouldn't being ourselves also possibly be considered trying to get as close to your divine force as you can, whether that is God, enlightenment, multiple gods, etc...... I wonder too, if be yourself could be actually be dangerous advice. Could it actually be feeding in some cultures an already rampant and destructive individualism. That in some countries or in much smaller contexts, this be yourself attitude and this focus just on me attitude, means don't give a fuck about anyone else and once we start breaking off on our own like that, we greatly weaken ourselves, we reach our true growth by being ourselves and by being with others, that this pride that we don't need anyone else is quite destructive to us. That we need can only achieve this state of "being ourselves" by being part of a group, culture or whatever, that we need others to become ourselves, that we need the group, to become part of it, to become ourselves. So be yourself might be better said, as "be yourself, so you can be part of the group"