Authentically Who???

There comes a time in every young person's life where they must decide whether or not to completely freak out. All jokes aside it's a real thing. Ask any 20-something out there and they'll tell you. Scout's honor.

Watch any show about this decade of life and one pure daunting theme is found amongst them all--personal identity. The greatest quest --to find oneself. Oneself, in our current culture, being predominately defined and summarized by a job, a significant other, what power or authority you have, where you live, what you live in, financial security...the list goes on and on.

The crazy part is that some people seem to have it all. The great job, the cool apartment, the good looking significant other, the beauty, the brains, have money will travel. From any vantage point they have the life you want. From any angle they are who you want to be.

But what about the rest of us? What about the outsiders What about the ones who have yet to figure it out or even worse the ones who seem to have lost ourselves along the way? How do we get back on track? How do we do better? How do we be better? More and more resources are detailing the easy steps to living a self-fulfilled life. More than at any point in human history we predominately have the knowledge and the tools at our fingertips to live the life we want to live.

Then why don't we? Why are we so unhappy? Why are we so discontent? Why do we do the things we hate? Why can we not achieve our goals? It's the first week of January and I'm sure half of the world has probably already broken their New Year's resolution (maybe an exaggeration but it's probably a high number).

The truth is we truly have lost sight of ourselves, our real selves, our authentic selves. If this were a cartoon some little cute animal with a snarky face would be popping, rather loudly, the dream bubble over the main character's head. Our entire focus and energy is set on attaining the unattainable. We've somehow deluded ourselves into believing we actually can, and more dangerously should, have it all and be all. It's exhausting, it's depressing, and it's got to stop.

Authentically Me cannot and is not designed to be Authentically You. Authentically You is not designed to be Authentically Me. That is why I need you, and you need me. If we lose sight of this our entire worlds begin to become Authentically Who??? Further more, for all the recovering type-A's and perfectionists, Authentically You is not Unrealistically You.

This is not a shout out to live life un-purposefully or without goals, to be lazy or un-motivated, rather it is the opposite. This is a shout out, a deep desire, for us all to begin being purposeful, to have goals, to be motivated, to be active all within the context of who we truly and authentically are. Authentikos means in congruence, in perfect unity with, the origin. It's no wonder we are struggling to be ourselves, to know what we want, to do what we want, when we are constricting ourselves within the confines of someone else's life or rather someone else's body.

How would are lives be different, how would we be different, how confident would we be if we chose to live life in congruence with who we really are? How would things be different if we chose it, were actually proud of it because we knew that we were unique, we were carefully designed and refined to be that authentic self?

Where does this journey from Authentically Who to Authentically You begin? It begins with grace. If you chose to give more grace to yourself each day what kind of life would you live? If we chose to give more grace to each other what kind of world would we share?

-Authentically Me