Becoming Authentic

I have been thinking A LOT lately about the choices I make in life and my motivation and intention for making them. This has lead me on quite the journey of becoming self aware.

First hand I had to acknowledge the need I have to be a people pleaser. You know how hard it can be to live your life based on other peoples intentions for you? For one it's depressing, and two it is self centered. And yes, you heard me right, self centered.

Think about it, the bottom line (usually) of why a given person lives their life to please others is so that others will like them and view them in a "good light." If you go against peoples wishes for you, you run the risk of having them think you are....rebellious, lacking in good judgment, impulsive, irresponsible, just plain dumb, inconsiderate, boring, prideful, lazy...(to name a few). And think what that would do to your ego!

The sad reality: In an effort to keep up our false front to others we lose all respect for ourselves.

Did you know, one of the greatest needs or desires of a human being is to feel ownership of oneself?

Letting your true desires be suppressed in order to fulfill others agendas for you ruins your sense of self. For someone who doesn't have a problem with this it is a no brainer, but for someone who has struggled with this it hit me like a ton of bricks knowing that I am jeopardizing my identity and self respect when I let others opinions affect me too strongly.

You know that very well quoted scripture? The one that goes something like if you want to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.

At first thought it may sound contrary to the principle I am explaining but in deeper observation you would realize that when the scriptures tell us to "lose ourselves" they are really meaning "lose your ego." When we lose the need to prop up our ego we become re-oriented with our true self because we begin living an authentic life. Our actions no longer are about looking good to others but rather they stem from a deep desire within ourselves to do what we truly want. Then is our truest self reveled.

This is God's greatest desire for us (I believe), that we learn to live our life out of true conviction to do good rather than out of a need to look obedient to our fellow men, to God, or even ourselves. Maybe we can go as far as to say that doing "good deeds" in an effort to "save face" is actually counter-intuitive because it stems from the unholy desire to make ourselves out to be more righteous than we really are. Therefore becoming selfish rather than selfless.

A favorite childhood book for me growing up was called, "You Are Special." 

It tells about a little village of Wimmicks that rated each other with little stickers. If you were an impressive wimmick you got a gold star, but if you were a lame wimmick you got a black dot. These "marks" were a reflection of who you were to others. For these wimmicks, their whole identity was centered around what stickers they received. 

One poor wimmick who was less than impressive only received black dots from his fellow wimmicks. Of course this made him feel more and more ashamed and depressed when he went out in the village and saw the other wimmicks. Until one day, he happened upon a girl wimmick who had absolutley no stickers on her of any kind. 

As the reader, you are instantly drawn to this character even though you have no idea what kind of wimmick she is. You can't say she is an amazing wimmick because she has no gold stars and you can't say she is a pathetic wimmick because she has no black dots. She is simply herself, and that is what is so refreshing and unique about her. 

Truth is, Wimmicks would try to give her dots and stars but whenever they were placed upon her they immediately fell off, and why? Because they mattered little to her. She did not base her self worth or her identity off what other people thought. She was authentic.

Well if you've read the book at all you know where this Wimmick found her truth identity...




 The moral of the story is, in order to become authentic you have to give up your ego. And in order to give up your ego you have to stop worrying about what other people think of you...