Sipping my coffee and thinking about “authenticity”. It’s an idea that comes up in a lot of self-help conversations, and in therapy, and in a variety of other contexts in life. What is “authenticity”? Does it come with the same baggage as unkindness masquerading as “telling unpleasant truths” does? Can I be authentically myself and also seek to improve on who I am – or does that set up internal conflicts or create cognitive dissonance? (It’s rhetorical – yes, I definitely can be authentic, and also seek to do better than I did yesterday.)

Most simply, “authenticity” is

…a person who acts in accordance with desires, motives, ideals or beliefs that are not only hers (as opposed to someone else’s), but that also express who she really is.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy

No idea why this is what is on my mind this morning. I’m just drinking coffee, listening to music, and waking up on a relaxed Sunday. 🙂 Let’s just go with it, eh?

Life is not reliably easy for most of us. There are challenges. Even “being authentic” can become one of those – think about authenticity in the context of your professional day… Is it always “safe” and “comfortable” to just be who you frankly truly are, when you are at work? For a lot of folks it doesn’t feel that way. How about at holiday dinners with extended family? What about out and about in the world? Do you adjust who you are depending on who you are with or what you are doing? (Another rhetorical question; you probably do, to some extent, that’s just part of learning to get along with a long of different people, in a lot of different circumstances. Doing it well is part of being invited back. lol) Do you take it too far and subsequently violate your own boundaries, undermine your ethical commitments, or stray outside your stated values in order to be welcomed and liked? That seems problematic… thoughts for another day, perhaps?

When you are authentically yourself 100%… do you like the results? Do you find value in the outcome? Do you enjoy who you are? Or… are you… wanting something very different from your experience? How do you seek to resolve that?

…Are you comfortable apologizing when you’ve hurt someone?

…Are you able to enjoy and appreciate who you are, exactly as you are in this moment?

…Do you consider the effect you have on those around you?

…Do you want more of yourself than you currently deliver?

…Are you succumbing to outside pressure demanding change that you don’t wish to choose for yourself?

…Who are you – and is this who you want to be?

Making some kinds of changes is hard. Like, really really hard. Becoming a different person, embracing new values, setting new (clear) boundaries, and making changes in life has the added challenge – however much you are eager to proceed down a new path – some people around you don’t want you to make those changes. They may want you to change, to be different than you are, but they have specific changes in mind that serve their needs and purposes; they are not actually invested in simply seeing you being your best self living your idea of your best life. They want you in a mold. The results would meet their needs, but would be less than ideally likely to meet yours. While that’s pretty fucked up, it says nothing about who you are – it’s about them. Pretty easy to let that go, and walk your own path with intention. 🙂

So… if you think you’re a dumbass, and you want to be “smart” and “educated”, the solution seems a bit obvious; get educated. Read books. Listen to the conversations of people smarter than you are. Makes it sound “easy”, doesn’t it? It’s not. As we educated ourselves, we pretty reliably also learn a lot about how much more we still also don’t know. The path stretches out ahead of us as we walk it. Growth is still worth it. It’s just a journey. The journey is the destination; choose your path with care, and walk it with your eyes open. 😀

I used the “dumb vs smart” example for ease. I’m feeling lazy this morning. If there’s a quality you lack as a human being, the point I’m making is that you can most likely cultivate that quality – any quality. Choose wisely; we become what we practice. There may be consequences to becoming that person that you haven’t considered or may not be aware of… Being authentically who you are is a good place to start the journey of becoming who you most want to be. The key – in my opinion – is not “faking it”. Be real. Be you. Be open. Be honest. Be (or become) self-aware. Humility is helpful, too. Learning patience has value…but here I’ve gone and started laying out the qualities I value, myself. Maybe that’s not who you want to be…?

Do you know who you want to become? It’s an important bit of knowledge. If you know who you are, and you know who you want most to be, you have a start on building a path that takes you from the one to the other, over time. (Sooo easy!! LOL)

Modern life does not make authenticity easy for human primates. We set ourselves up for failure with constant exposure to a digital world where “everyone” is doing better, seems prettier, richer, more successful… and we compare ourselves to those illusions, and wonder why we aren’t also enjoying those (often entirely staged) experiences, too? We set the bar sooo high! The comparisons, validation-seeking, likes/clicks/views, and pressure to conform or to excel result in a lot of frustration and depression for people who don’t have a sense of value as they are right now. There’s a reason that people often say things like “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else”… the intended communication is about how foundational self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-worth, and self-compassion really are. Hard to get anywhere in life without them, no simple users guide to develop them… Complicated.

I’m in a good place this morning. I feel very much “myself”, without losing sight of things I am working to improve about myself – for myself. My coffee tastes good. The music I am listening to is lively, and tends to reinforce positive messages (helpful in this regard that my broken brain “goes meta” so often with music, in a sense I bend the lyrics to my will by zooming out a bit). I’m on my own path, and that’s not just okay – it’s chosen.

It’s a good day to live and breathe and be. A good day to choose to practice being the woman I most want to be. A good day to recognize “who I am” while I work on becoming who I most want to be.

It’s a journey. Are you ready to begin it?

…And it’s time to begin again…