Is it better to be yourself or strive to be who you want to be?

Be yourself only better.

You can be both!

Be yourself - Don't be fake, don't lie, do what makes you happy.

Be who you want to be - Strive to attain anything you want, be it a job, or a significant other, or personal goals. But while you are doing this, don't lose who you are in the process!

If you are anyone but yourself, then you probably are troubled.
If you strive for who you want to be, then you are having a quarrel with yourself, and again you are troubled.
Perhaps you should form an ideal for yourself, and make a plan to achieve this.

I think the problem in why people aren't being educated too well today is because they aren't being told to be who they want to be, they are being told to be themselves, which obviously the majority doesn't want to be working all the time, etc.

I would say be who you want to be is better.

Don't just be yourself, be your BEST self.

In other words, stay true to who you are and don't try to change the very core of your being. Evolve and improve on the person that you already are, and completely try to eradicate serious character flaws. It should be easy to know the difference between deviating too much from your actual identity and simply improving who you are.

It all depends on what you want to change.
Changing personality and changing habits are a whole world of diffrent.

Why are these two things different? How can you be who you want to be without being yourself?

Tough call. It;s always seemed like you do have to adjust yourself as you go along to me. We seem to have to find a mix of what and who we are combined with what we want or how people perceive us.
I can't really be myself full on bc I'm too gung ho , that got dangerous. I sort of don't take shit that seriously either and that throws people a lot too, most people take everything so serious. I use to find people didn't take me seriously , they'd think a non serious nature meant that's just how you are but inside I was usually actually far more aware, observant,than the serious ones. So I did try to tone down a bit bc it really gave me the shits people not realizing what was also going under the surface.
Dunno what the answer is to where that line is tho.
You have to change or at least try harder or something to go after what you want to so .

I'm a horrible me. I don't know who I want to be so I'm just wasting space.

MUHAHHAHAHAHAA

be whoever you become. don't let anybody else change you, only you have that power.