on being "yourself"

Yesterday i was talking about which team people choose to support and i am aware that that might have been limiting to people's pleasure as it is a specific interest. I guess it all comes down to how we want to define ourselves, as part of our community and country or as adhering to a particular ethos or philosophy. When you think about it, people don't choose authors, poets, musicians, artists and philosophers on where they come from, why would you do that with a sports team?
Everyone, at one time or another, has heard the phrase, "just be yourself", whether it be parental advice on your first day at school or friends trying to help calm your nerves for a date or a job interview. The thing i struggle with is that, yes, people can be themselves in general but i don't see it embraced quite as fully as i think it should be, people do it in mind perhaps but not so much in body.
In Arundhati Roy's 'The God of Small Things' there is a sentence which says that Velutha (a character) 's body was shaped by his carpentry. This, in itself, is not that interesting a sentence, however what the phrasing of it made me think of was the fact that he had been shaped by his hobby, physically. What struck me at that moment was that no-one should make a particular effort to appear a certain way. This would lead to us being able to judge books by their covers (when books are a metaphor or analogous for people, when it comes to books it's far more problematic - they don't get to chose their covers in the way that we do). Now i like to think of my body as a tool for doing things that i want to do, it enables me to move, sense things etc but it is mainly a carrier for my brain. This might be what leads me to this point of view but i don't think that people should do things specifically to attain a certain aesthetic quality; people who enjoy spending time outside would then be the only tanned people and that would be right because it was part of who they were. The body could become a descriptor for a person's personality. People who enjoyed exercise would be slimmer and/or more muscular but people shouldn't just go to the gym in order to manufacture that (unless of course they enjoy the actual going to the gym rather than the results) because that is untrue of who they really are.
I think this all comes from our flawed notion of "beauty". We should recognise traits that we share with people in their very appearance and that should be attractive rather that what society conceives and deigns we should all find attractive. I just find it strange that we try to be something we aren't, something apart from our essence, away from our true beauty as an individual.
This theory would also cover food and drink. People should eat what they want and whatever shape they come out, when combined with everything else they enjoy doing, would be their "truest" shape, their "truest" self. I put truest in quotation marks because i felt it was a little strong otherwise but i do really believe that we have an ultimate, absolute essence and every time we do something that we don't enjoy or choose something that wouldn't be our first choice we distance ourselves from that and I think that if we just followed what we wanted we would all be a lot happier as every action would have meaning and passion and desire behind it.
I am, of course, aware that this isn't always possible, that it would be an idealist world for it to be possible to only do what you want but i also know that we aren't true to ourselves as often as we might be, as often as we should be.
The difficulty with this is knowing where to draw the line. There is making an effort, simple hygiene and there is going to the gym. Just because you don't enjoy the gym - and so don't fit the credo of only doing things that you do enjoy which would lead to forming a body most like your personality - does that mean you shouldn't go? By extension i don't enjoy the act of putting on sun cream or find brushing my teeth particularly riveting so should i not do that? Clearly these are issues of hygiene and protecting yourself against dangers and people will argue that going to the gym could be conditioning against an attacker or giving you the option of getting places quicker and thus a protection as well. Drawing the line between being untrue to yourself and endangering yourself is problematic but i think in general gym-goers tend to push the vanity borders and so don't fall in line with this theory - unless of course they really do go for the above reasons. In any case, vanity would become redundant as people would be beautiful in their own way rather than trying to attain certain characteristics.
When it comes to exercise and food if we all remained true to what we wanted to do, what we enjoyed then it would be easier to identify people with similar interests and versions of beauty would change, we would come to recognise personality traits and find them attractive in others. Objectors might say that the problem with this might be that it lead to a very homogenised social group but i feel when you factor in how long people spend outside (leading to tanning) and other variables you would find certain things in other people attractive but not others, just like in relationships now.
This clearly does not factor in many activities that leave no noticeable mark on the body such as reading, going to galleries and museums, listening to music (or the active rather than passive versions of these activities - i feel it is slightly sad that my first three activities were all passive) etc. But they would still be marked by their food choices and the general guide of just following what you enjoy and want to do still holds as a good rule for life. I feel if you keep selecting options that you enjoy or find interesting then they will continue to lead to other things you will enjoy, we should be fully ourselves and not try to manufacture something else. Sure, this will screw over modelling and the clothing industry but we all need a challenge and as long as they have followed things they enjoy and been true to themselves i'm sure they will enjoy this too.

I feel this might need some serious revisiting so watch this space.