Why You Should Be Authentic: A Life Lesson From Stupid Coldplay
There are a lot of places you can learn life lessons:
- Church
- School
- Wall-E
But the one that is probably most underrated is from terrible bands that you hate.
Like Coldplay.
I saw them on an episode of Storytellers a few years back and Chris whatshisname was storytelling about some of the songs he wrote. I don’t know why I was watching it because I hated Coldplay back then, but there I was watching it anyway. They were trucking along, playing their mostly annoying but catchy songs and before they started “The Scientist” ol’ Chris told a story about how the song came to be.
The story goes that he had suffered some heartbreak in the past, and because he didn’t want everyone all up in his and Gwinney Paltrow’s bidness, he wasn’t going to open himself up in his lyrics anymore. Instead he was just going to write songs about regular stuff like math and science and turkey sandwiches. One of his band mates told him that was a stupid idea and that his songs should be about authentic aspects of his life if they were going to be any good and voila, he wrote “The Scientist.”
Now, whether that or any of the songs he wrote after that are any good is debatable but the idea of authenticity and sharing your true self is what really stuck with me.
Maybe it’s because I have so much in common with the lead singer of a world famous (ok, not as terrible as I used to think) band.
Or maybe it’s just because authenticity is something I have struggled with for a lot of my life. Not like “I am really an alien lizard pretending to be human” authenticity, more like not doing and saying the things I want to because I am worried about what people will think.
If this is something you struggle with too I will offer you this: In the history of the world, nothing important has ever been done by people who didn’t speak up, or stand out, or who just went with the flow.
So I am not going to do that anymore and I don’t think you should either.
That can be a hard thing, especially as parents. We want our kids to stand out, be unique, be true to themselves. As long as that trueness doesn’t mean they have a green Mohawk and wear Doc Martens. Right?
And for ourselves, we want to be known for being extraordinary but when our friends ask about our weekend we don’t tell them about the painting we worked on all weekend, or the song we wrote about rainbows, or our new blog about hilarious and/or life changing parenting stories. Instead we just say, “My weekend was fine. Just piddled around.”
Why do we do this?
For some people, maybe it’s more comfortable to follow the crowd. To not stand out. To not open themselves up to criticism.
For others, maybe life just got too lifey and you gave up on your passion or need to be extraordinary. You couldn’t find a way to fit it in so you just stopped trying.
Maybe, it’s because you tried to stand out and got rejected or worse, ignored, and just decided it would hurt less to go with the flow and stay between the lines. Then you ended up resenting yourself and beating yourself up and drank 12 beers and watched The Shawshank Redemption for the 624th time and ate half a box of Cheez-its until 2:00 AM and hit snooze for an hour and a half the next morning because why bother getting up to write when no one will want to read the garbage you write anyway.
What it really comes down to is this:
Do what you want to do. Be who you want to be. And maybe most importantly, teach your kids to do the same.
You will probably get hurt. Or made fun of. Or told your idea is stupid. And guess what? It probably is. Just like stories about talking mice, wizard schools, and shows about nothing.
But you know what else is stupid? Being just like everyone else.
So do what you want and as long as it doesn’t physically injure someone who really cares.
And if you’re still feeling bad, just go watch Wall-E because it is the best Pixar movie ever and I’ll fight anyone who says different.
Dad, husband, writer, retired amateur skateboarder.
Originally published at dadletteroffice.com on October 16, 2018.
