May 24th, 2012
“I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you.”
-David Whyte
You are a border war.
On the one hand there is what lies inside. Your genetic hand-me-downs. Your personality. Your gift. Your hopes and aspirations and values and priorities. That which moves you.
On the other hand is what lies outside. The world around you. The implicit and explicit social pressure that comes from friends, enemies, society and family. Norms and expectations, rewards and punishments. A confusing mix of messages that both celebrate the idea of originality and profit greatly from the reality of conformity.
Where these two opposing forces meet is you. In beta.
Social pressure is a constant. No matter who you are or where you go, there will always be some pressure to fit in, to be normal. The problem is that you are not normal. Being true to who you are is going to evoke responses from people. Until the day comes that they label it a “best practice,” someone will be telling you that you are doing it wrong. That is just human beings being human. We struggle mightily to wrap our brains around the difference between popularity and value, between novelty and wrong. We abuse each other with ideals of normalcy.
Sometimes you get tired of fighting. I know. But you have got to go back and fight more. If you do not keep fighting, if you are doing all the accommodating, then your identity gradually becomes truncated. You start to accept that you are not creative or that you are not a catalyst or that you are not a leader or that you are not an athlete. You start to take up less space. You allow your identity to be determined by the outside, not the inside.
So you have to keep fighting and you have to keep going back to that place where you feel vulnerable. It is only there that you are playing with your courage and that is how you make the awesomesauce. That is how you provoke the future.
“Vulnerability is our most accurate indicator of courage.”
-Brene Brown
Sometimes the struggle to be authentic will be in places you didn’t anticipate. You may not always get support where you expect it. Your people just want you to be safe. Do not hold it against them.
Be at odds with the world. Be creatively maladjusted. Fight and be disruptive. The rest of us will be better for it.
You are a border war. Participate.
Be good to each other.
I totally agree! Everyone should strive to be authentic. We were not all created to look, act and think alike. Don’t act me, we already have one of those!