Who are you? What’s your real personality? What do you stand for? Are you the same person all the time? Or do you change how you look and how you act depending on which environment you are in and what you want to achieve?
Do you practice – “when in Rome do as Roman’s do”? Do you fit in to your environment not just in terms of dressing or outwards appearance but how you express yourself? Do you believe fitting-in is necessary to survive and thrive?
Everyday, I see people who either present a facade based on the situation or hold back significantly from expressing themselves. With the same people at different times, I had the good fortune to see their “unique gifts and talents” and now it saddens me to see all of these gifts and talents being wasted or held back.
So why are we so afraid to be ourselves? Would it serve us to make our life’s purpose to simply ourself! Here are some reasons I feel people have in their subconscious or conscious mind:
- They may not like it
- You have to fit-in to get the opportunities / success
- It’s been done that way
- It makes practical sense / be practical
- Who cares anyways
- You can’t survive like this
- It’s not respectful (popular opinion) .. and the list goes on
Real Power
Our real power in life is our “authenticity”. If we did lose our authenticity, how did we it? The primary culprit for that is modern education. Modern education, has made people robots with some technical skills and neglecting or worse yet suppressing the main purpose of education – that is bring out the authenticity in a person.
How to?
Well honestly, I spent a lot of time wondering what advise to give and I could not come up with much. I could give you many examples but then they would be my examples. I could make case for authenticity – but then we would be intellectualizing the topic. So what to do?
JUST GIVE IT TRY
From today on wards try to be authentic in small non-threatening situations. Just do it and notice how you feel differently, how people start treating you differently. Speak your mind, show your colors, start small and build to bigger things and matters. The real answer to what difference authenticity can make lies in giving it a try for a decent period of time.
Do share your thoughts and experiences here.