Being Authentic Part 2

Being authentic involves realizing you are not perfect and neither is anyone else no matter what kind of persona they like to present. It is incredibly freeing to admit and advertise your lack of perfection. I like to put an amusing spin on things that happen. After all, if we don't laugh about life then we would all sit around crying. I choose to laugh. Your attitude is key to living an authentic life. You will feel trapped if you try to keep putting on an air of perfection.

I love a picture that one of my friends posted on social media today. They posted a picture of their mound of laundry that needed to be folded and characterized it as "Art Deco Laundry Sculpture". Folks, that is a real example of living an authentic life. All of us have a mound of laundry just like my friend, but I pillow my head tonight knowing I am not alone in the struggle to keep up with washing and folding. So many don't feel free to post everyday life. It keeps it real, makes others feel a sense of commonality, and helps us realize we are not alone. Not just with laundry but with life.

For years I have mentioned that I was out for Mother of the Year. One day I may be in for serving donuts for dinner, another day I may be out for forgetting I told my daughter I would come eat lunch at school with her. The fact is that the illustrious status of Mother of the Year is a tedious honor that walks a very thin rope. One minute you are a shoe in for saving the science project from certain doom when your son's volcano erupts and the lava is melting the paint but you swoop in with your mother of the year cape on and save the day by helping touch up the paint. The next minute you are out because you forgot today was 4-h and you didn't make muffins with your daughter. Own it. The fact of the matter is that we all are Mother of the Year in our child's eyes. Even though we fail and succeed on a daily basis.

Admitting you aren't perfect is like releasing the valve on a pressure cooker. It's just too much effort to try to be perfect. Embrace your imperfection and share it with other imperfect people. Putting an amusing spin on everyday life is just like smiling: it's contagious. Let's create an epidemic.

Now that is a point to ponder.

Being Authentic

Being Authentic.  What does that even mean?  One of my readers asked me to write about how I became an authentic person and I have to admit is has totally left me scratching my head.  It has led me on a soul searching journey for the past week or so examining what does being authentic even mean and how did this person even determine that I was authentic?  This is good stuff.  We all need to be authentic.  Just be ourselves on a day to day basis.  To the person who asked me to write about this, it is going to have to be a series on Being Authentic because it is a multifaceted topic.  To those who are reading, I hope my thoughts help just one person be themselves on a daily basis.

First of all, if you don't even know who you are that is a place to start.  In my early adult life, I remember and even look back on pictures at how I dressed and how I did my hair and how I cooked and how I acted.  It all was about what someone else thought I should wear, look like, act like, cook like, etc..  In an earlier blog post I talked about my decision to cut my hair short and spiky and how I was met with much opposition in that decision.  The bottom line there is that you may not want your hair short and spiky but I do.  And that is ok.  You may not want to wear black, but I do.  You may not like to allow your children to get their cartilage pierced, but I choose not to fight that battle.  The fact is that we are all different and God made us this way.  We all need to be tolerant and accepting of other people's desires, opinions, style of dress, and ways to raise their children because what may be good for one person may not be good for another person.  But we should be supportive of what other people like and do as long as it is not harmful or against God's word.  What we don't realize is that our support of others relieves a ton of pressure to allow us all to be Authentic.  We are all human and as much as we would not like to let the opinions of others affect our decisions, the fact is that it does.  So if we all would be in support of different people's different strategies to survive life, raising kids, and dressing themselves, then we would all feel much more free to be who we are.  Let's face it, not everyone can just say "forget them, I am going to do what I want to do.".  So a little tolerance and keeping your mouth shut with your opinions will help tremendously towards a birth of authentisism in everyone.  Let's all take time to cut down the pressure by keeping our opinions to ourselves and only show support and not negativity unless it is harmful or against God's word, and your definition of harmful may not be really harmful in the grand scheme of things.

The reason people lie is because they believe the truth will not be good enough.  Read that statement twice or three times.  It is about as true as anything on this planet.  One of the ways to be authentic is to tell the truth all the time and let that be good enough.  When you realize that people lie because they believe the truth is not good enough then you can tell the truth all the time because your truth IS good enough.  We all make mistakes and sometimes our truth is not pretty but it is part of the knitting of the fabric of our lives.  If we are allowing ourselves to be authentic then we will admit that we are not perfect and tell of times when we made mistakes because God allows us to suffer to help others along the way.  What I have been through may help someone else.  But if I keep it to myself then who am I helping?  I heard a story of Jews escaping concentration camps and the years of work they spent mapping and planning.  Once they escaped do you think they kept their info to themselves?  NO  They shared it so others could escape.  If we are transparent and share our struggles with others then we are being authentic and you will find that others will come out of the woodwork showing gratitude for sharing because they have been closet sufferers of the same thing.  Being Authentic means being transparent.  No one is perfect and if you act like you are then you are living a lie.  Your story can help others.

This is the first installment of the Being Authentic Series.  I hope it has helped just one person. I have many things to share about this and am excited to continue to think on the subject of being authentic.  For today, I will leave you with one of my favorite mottos:

Be Yourself and let that be Good Enough

Now that is a point to ponder.