To Thine Own Self Be True

Somehow I recently ended up following one of those Twitter people who simply post a quote a few times a day...never a quote of their own, but one they've copied from elsewhere.  Putting aside the fact that I find this practice shockingly far off the mark of what Twitter or any other social network should be, and ignoring the fact that most internet quotes are incorrectly attributed, misquoted, or just plain made up...I did see one that caught my attention and stopped me in my tracks the other day.  To Thine Own Self Be True.   

Now, I'm not the most literate nor erudite of my friends by a long stretch, but I can be a bit of a Shakespeare nerd, so I know this quote inside and out.  Found in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3, the full quote is actually: 

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

This is the farewell of Polonius (a father) to his son Laertes, as Laertes is about to board a ship to France.  On the surface it seems to be kind and gentle advice to his son: take care of yourself.  However, as is true of nearly every line written by the clever and learned* Shakespeare, we need to look a bit deeper.   The reader would do well to bear in mind that in Shakespearean (Tudor) times, France embodied nearly everything that would terrify a devout upper class father such as Polonius--who was at court in the play.  It was a worldly country, full of open debauchery as opposed to the secretive yet likely just as raucous appetites of the Elizabethan court.  In addition, of course, the political relationship between France and Elizabethan England was turbulent, often bloody, and the cause of much paranoia, mistrust and suspicion throughout the upper classes of both countries--and, indeed, most of Europe.

This isn't really the place to deal with an in-depth discussion on Mary, Queen of Scots (and France), and the threat she posed to Elizabeth, but suffice it to say that this fatherly advice was given to a son who was not just heading out into the world, but heading into what the father would perceive as the most wicked, cutthroat, lawless society known to him at the time.

So, Polonius was not just telling his son to take care of himself.  In the vernacular of the day, the word "true" dealt less with avoidance of false speech or deceptive action, and much more with "straightness", as in straight farrows on a farm, or a straight sword.  "True" in this context meant to be on the straight and narrow, basically.  He was telling Laertes to avoid the moral temptations he would surely encounter in "god-less" France--at the same time seeming to caution him that indulgence in such things would surely repay itself in the form of other people dealing immorally or unjustly with him.  So Dad is telling his son, stay "good", moral, above board, keep your nose (and, ahem, other things) clean...and your dealings with others will remain that way as well. In a sense, this was the 17th century equivalent of saying, "pay it forward", and someday it will come back to you.

And when I read that quote on Twitter, I was stunned by just how fundamental and timeless a concept this really is--but also, how many times in history authors feel compelled to continue exhorting readers to do just that.
"The Eloquent Peasant" was a fable written in approximately 2000-1650 BCE in Egypt.  It says, basically, "Do to the doer, to cause that he do".  Confucius flipped the script a little, and sometime around 500 BCE said, and I paraphrase, "do not do to others what you do not want done to you".  Fast forward to the Bible, the Book of Matthew, ca. 100 AD:  "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."  Basically this is the Golden Rule.  But we humans are hard-headed, aren't we?  1400 years later (!!!) Shakespeare still had to hammer away at this point.  And here we are, another 400 or so years after that...in the year 2000 it was still enough of a novel concept to become a movie.  And a decade later, it shows up on Twitter, fodder for the quote-mill.

So, when will we all catch on?  Do Unto Others As You Would Have Done Unto You.  It's a perfect statement:  crystal clear.  Reciprocal.  It's a balanced equation.  So why can't we do it?  How is it that we haven't quite figured this out, and it's still necessary for authors to write and remind us of this very basic building block of society?

Whether this relates to a job search (from either a jobseeker or a recruiter's point of view!), or to going about your day interacting with your coworkers or fellow students or your kids or your employees or even strangers...what's so revolutionary about the idea of simply being nice, doing the right thing?  What's really THAT hard about being considerate of one another's space, one another's time, and meaning what you say/saying what you mean?  

I'm sure we all try.  I know I do--but I also know I fail sometimes.  The important thing though, in my opinion, is to keep trying.  That silly one line quote seen on Twitter (right before I unfollowed the semi-spammy sender) has motivated me to revisit this classic axiom, and determine to live every day trying my best to be true to my own self--so that I may be true to all others around me.  What are your thoughts on this?



*For more on my beloved Shakespeare, including information I believe to be accurate about both his lineage and his education, I highly encourage you to read the captivating "Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom".  Whether or not you ultimately agree with the author's assertion regarding the true identity of Shakespeare, it's a fascinating cultural treatise on Elizabethan England and definitely thought-provoking as you read and re-read the works of "the Bard".