The Power of The Authentic Life
Never try too hard to make people like you. In fact, it doesn’t matter if people like you or not. Be your best self and you’ll attract the best people for you.
The key to being your best self is passion. If you aren’t excited to do something, why should be people be excited to be around you? We’re drawn to people who make a life. We tolerate those content to simply live.
You don’t try to be likable. Likability and charisma are the outcomes. Outcomes are impossible to control. Living passionately, in pursuit of a worthwhile goal, is a process. We can control the process.
Great processes are more likely to produce great outcomes. Try-hards focus on the outcome, repelling people in the process. The passionate are too focused on their life mission to care if you like them. This makes people like them more.
This is why political correctness is a drag. It focuses on not offending other people. The focus is on how others interpret your words. It is nearly impossible to be politically correct and authentic.
This is why women want bad boys. True bad boys don’t give a damn about how the woman feels. They do what’s in their best interest first. They don’t intentionally drop “negs”. They live passionately. True attraction follows.
Conversely, being offensive for the sake of it is also repulsive. People can feel when something is an act or a defense mechanism. This is also why sarcasm is repulsive to anyone with an authentically strong personality. Real not only recognizes real, but it also recognizes fake.
Authenticity is so powerful because it is, by definition, impossible to fake. A person must grow into the best version of themselves, but not change to appease the masses. How does one become their best self but not change? What allows a person to grow authentically?
Focus on whatever sparks your passion. Why it lights your fire is irrelevant. All that matters is that it does no harm. Ideally, your passions improve you and your environment. If you aren’t interested in anything of this nature, do no harm.
You are becoming your best self as long as what you pursue aligns with your passion. The moment you begin to live for another’s desires is the moment you lose authenticity. It is when you become artificial.
The ultimate goal is to make your environment a product of you. Inauthentic people are products of their environment. As a result, they never polarize. They go through life in a middling state of blah.
A sure sign that you are living an authentic life is polarity. People will rally against you or alongside you, but you no longer get to exist in the masses of blah. Whether they love or hate you, they will be envious of you because you go against the grain.
And what is “the grain” in this case? It is the plan your culture and society has had for you since birth. It’s the one that you’re expected to follow without question. When you start to break free and do something different, there will be a reaction.
If you succeed in your authentic life, then you are confirming the greatest fear: there is more to life and they’re missing out.
If you don’t have the balls to risk being hated, you don’t have the strength to receive love. The meaning is simple: if you can’t endure the consequences of authenticity, you do not deserve the rewards.
The best and worst things in life walk side by side. By avoiding one, you automatically forfeit the other. This is the life of the middling. This is the life of the inauthentic.
