The Authentic Self

It is a bit daunting to think that every time we breathe we take in a small bit of the universe. And by the same token, every time we exhale we leave a bit of ourselves out in the open. Vulnerable and unsettling as that may seem, we each hold the key to the threshold that enters the laborite to our individual self and our breathing is the conduit, both literal and metaphoric; pursuit to each other. And no one else can enter that very crooked path for you; it’s a solo gig. But it’s so hard to know the self.  

One way is to look at our expectations for they tell us more about ourselves than just what we’re expecting. How far are you willing to go for your aspirations? Blind ambition can lead to all kinds of false idles until you can’t get enough. You become so separated from all that is internal… it remains hidden, covered up in a delusion. How do we avoid this interior/exterior tug of war?

As Rosanne Cash said, “the way you behave whether in public or private is quintessential to being yourself.” Most of us wear a mask in public that suits our purpose and when we enter our solitude we remove our mask and either become our true ‘self’ or we aspire to a certain spiritual state in search of the true ‘self’. Still, others become negative in the most profound of ways, washing away any good our mask might have portrayed. Our public face is off-kilter with its private image and this is equivalent to the differences we entertain with our inward and outward personas. We are fighting against ourselves.

The thing is to treat others and ourselves as we would like to be treated and therefore strive to behave in that way at all times, indifferent to being observed or not. In this way, we become an authentic person and live every minute in an authentic way. The universe is listening whether you’re in a crowd with your mask intact or by yourself. Just maybe some of the ill’s in this world today could be prevented if we weren’t at war with ourselves.

©jc2016-9