Some people say we must be authentic in a world where everyone behaves the same, and others say authenticity is overrated.
I believe we’re all authentic by default. Well, not really by default but by life circumstances, experiences, context, background, or all of them combined. At some point, we start shaping our own story, consciously and unconsciously. Different paths show up, and when we are able to see them, we decide to either ignore them or explore them based on our own perspectives. The combination of all these elements makes us unique and authentic.
However, along the way, we get used to lying to ourselves. We craft a blindfold that becomes more difficult to untie the longer we wear it. Most people never even realize it’s there. It becomes normal and it’s shaped by external factors that have been put in place to make us function in a particular way where we never question anything.
But once we learn that it’s just a creation of our mind and that we can certainly start taking the blindfold off, we become truer to ourselves. We start to be consistent with what we say and what we do.
That clarity and consistency inevitably make us authentic.
So, the question is not so much ‘How can I be more authentic?’ We already are. The question is what do we need to decide so we can unfold the version of us that is the best version we can be? What version makes more sense so we can be consistently ourselves?