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Just be yourself is low-resolution advice
The problem with highly simplified advice is that it’s razored all of the “unimportant” bits into a pure bumper-sticker tagline.
Insight requires context and there’s no context to go off of until we live life, but the more complex versions of these simplified answers can give us the context we needed to understand them before the quote makes sense.
You can take your tao te Ching level poetry and sit with it for a long time, or perhaps read through hundreds of western-style prose that attempts to capture the same concept.
I’m rambling
Just be yourself is what people tell you when they have no advice, there’s two assumptions we can make
- It’s out of an incomprehensible sage-level wisdom for which they are the guru and us the peon
- They have no idea what they’re talking about so they slapped a bumper-sticker on it to shut up your moaning about a problem “Why are you asking me for advice?”
The sage has recognized that in giving any other advice, you begin to compromise the one and only thing you can actually do, and thing you do best on earth.. be yourself. Even if they tried to tell you otherwise, you will judge their advice within your own context and decide based on you, or you muck it up and the outcome isn’t worth it because You didn’t earn it, the robot following instructions did.