Carl Jung once said that the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are and I think this wise man was onto something. Living authentically should in theory come to us easily but is somehow one of the hardest things to do.
I created this platform to keep track of the many ways I am attempting to show up in a more authentic and aligned way in my own life. Taking you with me on this journey as I try unexpected things, visit new places and learn from the world around me.
So I wanted to elaborate a bit further on why I think living authentically is so important.
Previous generations did not seem particularly concerned with authentic living, or finding their true purpose. I have had many fascinating conversations with my grandmother over the years, but the discussion on how to discern between our conditioning and our true desires has yet to come up.
Somehow our generation is different in that aspect. We’ve collectively never spent more time with therapists, coaches and healers than we do now. Some might say we are a little bit self-obsessed.
Well good.
I personally think that the commitment to self-work and to becoming a more genuine version of ourselves is wonderful and one of the best investments of our personal time, so I am celebrating the shift. We all deserve to live a life that feels grounded and authentic and this starts by figuring out who we really are. Or at least trying to.
I was rewatching Gilmore Girls recently and there’s one episode where Lorelai is intensely staring at a pop tart and trying to figure out whether she genuinely loves pop tarts or if she only loves them because she knows her mother would disapprove of them.
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Now that’s probably a silly example but it got me thinking about all the things that I do just because I believe I am supposed to. And that list is unsurprisingly quite long.
How often do we do things because of other people’s expectations instead of doing it because this is something that we genuinely enjoy?
Starting a sport because this is what your parents really want you to do.
Dating someone you’re not that into because you don’t want to feel the judgement associated with being a single woman past a certain age.
Having a specific career because this is what success is traditionally associated with in our society.
Eating pop tarts because you know your mother would hate it.
The list could honestly go on forever.
Personally, I have always been really good at doing exactly what was expected of me and you can be sure I always gave it 110%.
Did I mention I was the eldest daughter of an eldest daughter and eldest son?
But sometimes the pressure of keeping up with other people’s expectations just becomes too much. My first year at university I finished top of my class, and no one was more surprised than me. I went in with an almost non-existent science background and was thrown into university-level physics and chemistry and it kicked my ass. I was working really hard to keep up with the curriculum, and it ended up paying off beyond expectations.
I was obviously very proud of my achievement, partly because I had gotten better grades than all of the guys and what can I say, this was business engineering school, and I always enjoy a little feminist moment.
By the time the second year started, everyone knew who I was and the people who didn’t know my name had nicknamed me “number 1”. I had become the benchmark for my entire year and random people would message me as soon as exam results came out to learn which grades I had gotten and see how they fared in comparison.
Previously, all I had wanted was to do well in my exams but now I could feel the weight of people’s expectations on my shoulders and the pressure I put on myself as a result literally crushed me. To this day, I don’t know how I made it through that second year.
Someone once told me that you will compromise your beliefs when you prioritise belonging over yourself and I wish my 20-year old self could have heard that. That she would have known that other people’s expectations were not nearly as important as what she wanted for herself.
As I get older, I am able to better distinguish one and the other and it’s become increasingly difficult for me to pretend to care about things that do not feel aligned. Maybe turning 30 has made me realise I no longer wanted to waste time pretending to be someone I am not.
To me, authentic living means building a life that is truly aligned with our purpose, our values and our heart. It’s making conscious and intentional decisions for ourselves and not for the sake of others. It’s creating an environment where we feel inspired, driven and at peace.
We are all unique and what works for someone else won’t necessarily work for you. The same vegan diet will make some people the healthiest they have ever been, while making others completely miserable. Some people thrive waking up at 5 am every day while others will only feel their best if they can sleep in. This is why I don’t believe in the whole “successful people wake up before 6 am” speech or in any one-size-fits-all solution for that matter.
No one knows you better than yourself so you should take what resonates with you and leave out the rest. There’s a lot of amazing advice and inspiration out there but not all of it is meant for you. It’s a game of trial and error, listening to your inner voice and figuring out what works and what doesn’t (although I did not have to try the 5 am thing to know it would make me feel terrible).
Building an authentic life is a life-long journey that has the potential to transform us for the better.
Come back soon to discover how I am building a genuine life for myself in the next article.
Love,
