Admittedly, I’ve lived by that axiom most of my adult life. I’m so good at it, in fact, that people actually think I always know what I’m doing and that I’m perfect. It’s fun to watch someone realize I’m just as human as they are.

This doesn’t mean I act like a fraud or deliberately mislead people into believing I’m something I’m not. It means that with a little confidence and a little common sense, I can generally muddle through a situation until I’ve actually picked enough skills to do it on my own.

It may sound weird, but it really works. When you’re “faking it”, you’re really taking an opportunity to learn what you need to know in a hands-on situation, arguably the best way to learn anything. Even better, you’re immediately applying what you’re learning, further cementing your own understanding. You can then apply that to the next time the same question or situation arises, and you’re reinforcing your learning. Once you’ve completely learned that answer or process, there’s no longer a need to fake anything, and you’re honestly standing on your own two feet.

There’s something to be said for being yourself.

It requires far less energy than trying to be someone else, and these days, everyone is looking to conserve a little energy, right? It’s also far more satisfying to do what you truly love rather than what someone else loves. And third, being yourself might be the only chance to give yourself to be really brave, because let’s face it, it takes a good deal of bravery to be a child-free adult who loves her Saturday morning cartoons. What? No…of course, I don’t do that…except in months with 28 days in them.

Need more convincing? Check out Scott Ginsberg’s post on how people react to those smart enough to be themselves, and see if that doesn’t motivate you.

During my freshman year of college, I took one of the very few economics class available for core credit. If you ask me about the class, I’d tell you it was held in this gorgeous low building at the western end of campus, that I spent many of my afternoons in that class staring across the street at The Hill, and that my two friends in the class were huge MST3K fans who were sad I was never able to go watch with them.

In fact, the only lecture I remember was the day the professor was trying to start a role-playing scenario about the Old West. I can’t tell you what point she was trying to make, because she was derailed fairly early in the scenario. Somehow, we got on the topic of being an individual versus conforming. She asked us to raise her hands if we thought we didn’t conform. I was one of the few who raised her hand.

The teacher asked each of us in turn why we thought we were a nonconformist, and then pointed out that we all follow some basic rules. For example, none of us was running around campus naked, and we were all students with perfect attendance. According to her, that took away our nonconformity. That bothered us. None of us could see why adhering to rules that benefited us would eat into our otherwise nonconformist lifestyles.

I’m still not what anyone would call “normal”, and I teach teenagers. Theoretically, teenagers are supposed to be rebellious as they try to figure out who they’re going to be when they emerge from the teenage cocoon. According to several of my students over the past couple of years, being a teenager automatically makes them nonconformists.

But the teen years are often when we’re most motivated to be accepted, so my rebellious teenagers express their individuality, their nonconformity, by falling in with the subculture that appeals to them, and then conforming with that group. I actually tried to ask one of my students once how that made them a nonconformist, but he couldn’t really answer me because it was like, you know…and…I don’t know. You know?

I think even as adults, we have the same problem. We want to stand out, but still be accepted by the crowd. Being “weird” haunts us. But maybe it’s not the worst label to bear.