Being Authentic vs Being An Ideal You
I have the feeling that a lot of people are bothered with who they have become. More than that, there are people who are uncomfortable in their own skin. For me, one of the reason of that is the abandonment of one's essence, that part that should remain the same throughout life. I translate this essence as our inner child or our true personal values, in other words our authenticity.
At the same time, I believe that there is another part of us that absorbs the world around us, shapes itself according to the events and experiences we go through. Many times we change ourselves to adapt better to the world around us, creating an adapted version of our ideal self, but the problem is that we don't know exactly how to separate adaptation and letting go who we are.
Much of the discomfort with who we become comes from the failure to fulfill the endless, gigantic expectations we have created about ourselves. To exacerbate this situation, from a few generations to now, the so-called "dictatorship of success" has prevailed socially, and more recently the "dictatorship of purpose". Both increasing the pressure on everyone to show more "results" and shout out the full certainty of each chosen path.
But achieving "success" and achieving all these "results", despite so many tools and easy access to information is not a simple task. Also, it is getting clearer every day that achieving them is no guarantee of happiness, fulfillment or well-being.
We have to pay attention when journeying in the pursuit of these ideals. Especially when it costs are our health, family, friendships or attitudes that put our values and our authenticity in check we must be careful and evaluate.
It is difficult to look back and notice a huge distance between where we arrived and our ideal path, where we actually wanted to be. But we need to do something to deal with the sense of disruption, discomfort with who we become or the feeling that something is lacking.
If our life could be compared to a house, the foundation would be our essence, the inner child or our values. That is, the base, something practically immutable ... The bricks and tiles would be the experiences that we have. In order to have a beautiful house it is necessary to organize bricks and tiles. We must know that each thing has its place and that if we do not organize it well, we will not have a beautiful house but a pile of rubble.
If you are not who you wanted to be, maybe you should try to find you essence and a great way is to listen more to your inner child and to respect it. Give "yes to yes" and "no to no", fulfilling what your values require to remain intact. With this, the feelings of gratitude only tends to grow and confidence in oneself is strengthened.
About experiences, it is crucial to have good sense and care when interpreting each event that you experience. By filtering and analyzing each of these events, it is possible to compose a repertoire that helps you to walk and avoid repetition of certain errors. A negative experience, for example, can mean a trauma to one or a great learning for others, depends only on how we view the situation.
Knowing that many people from different parts of the world feel the same, is in a way a relief to this discomfort, because after all, we are all here to evolve and to learn. Our authenticity really needs to be maintained, respected because that's what builds our singularity. Experiences fill and color our lives, give dynamism and provide the challenges that turn out to be our greatest fuel. So, how about using them as stories that teach us or as steady steps in our evolution?
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