“You Have To Be Authentic. Every. Single. Day”
A valuable lesson garnered at a social event
(A sort of public diary entry cross-posted from my blog)
Ten months or so I had the merit of attending a friend’s wedding.
It was quite a glamorous affair on account of the prestige of the bride’s family.
The Friday night dinner which preceded the wedding was held in just about the fanciest hotel in the city. There were bodyguards. Politicians. It was quite an interesting milieu.
Despite our un-eminent station in society (I am a marketing writer; a friend in our contingent is a free-living musician) the groom kindly invited us to both the preceding dinner, the wedding itself, and a party after (the point of this blog post isn’t to brag about being invited to this wedding, so although there were more interesting details to the affair, I will not be embellishing beyond what’s necessary.)
This wedding was shortly before my gallbladder surgery when beer and my digestive system were still on good terms.
My wedding companion and I arrived a little early and had a drink in the hotel lobby. The nice thing about it was that after one small beer I loosened up about the idea of being in a room with people I knew from watching the news and began to get into the groove of just enjoying the evening.
After some time we were seated at a table by the entrance. Next to us are seated an attractive couple, probably ten years older than us, who are part of the travelling delegation from what I could tactfully describe as the famous half of this couple that necessitated aforementioned security.
Seeing these two seated at the “kiddy’s table,” by the door, I instantly felt a bit embarrassed for them. What kind of short straw did they draw to be seated next to us?
Nevertheless, my anxiety and pity were both unfounded.
The couple were warm and friendly and — despite clearly being very affluent — had no airs or graces and were surprisingly down to earth. If they were bummed about the seating arrangement and not being around more important adults, well, they did a great job of disguising their feelings. I got talking to the husband during the meal and we shared a shot of arak.
The gentleman, it turned out, was a successful diamond trader from New York City. We listen to the same Rabbi on the internet. So we had enough at least, to start up a cordial conversation about.
At some point — perhaps after the first shot of arak had sunk in — the guy decided to bestow his best life advice upon me. Perhaps I had asked for the key to his success (after five minutes this would have been uncharacteristic!). Maybe we had impressed upon him the difficult grittiness of making a living in Israel and he had sporadically decided to offer it. Maybe none of those things were segues. I can’t recall. But it doesn’t really matter.
The secret to success in life, he claimed, was to be authentic. But he didn’t stop there.
You have to be authentic, he insisted, every single day. And this is the part that has stood with me.
As he described it, it wasn’t good enough to have moments or flashes of authenticity or to be on a run of it and then stop.
No. Authenticity, he claimed, was sort of like a chain. If you let up, even for a day or two, the chain is broke and you’re back to square one — or at least you’ve muddied your messaging because those following you no longer know what’s the true you and what’s a front.
He emphasized this far more than the value of authenticity itself, which of course is much more commonplace advice.
As is sometimes the case, this comment — that perhaps was meant as as throwaway — has stuck with me ever since (and it’s always those small remarks that linger, good or bad).
For some reason, I decided — viscerally, subconsciously — that this advice spoke to me on some deep level.
I don’t expend mental energy trying to parse and unpack every nugget of wisdom I receive. But for some reason I felt an instantaneous attachment to this one. And I still feel that today trying to verbally unpack it.
That’s all I really to say for now.
In the intervening months since, I’ve tried to be a little bit braver about being authentic in my online writing. I’m always wary about where the mark is between sharing enough and over-sharing.
To give an example:
I wrote a piece today in which I offered my true feelings about hasbara (amateur pro-Israel advocacy). I think that hasbara is a colossal waste of time and energy even though I’m virtually certain that my views are going to offend a couple of friends who are involved in the world. Nevertheless, if I were going to write a piece about the things that I would like to see change in Israel, it would be unauthentic to not include that.
Likewise, and despite undoubtedly seeming like a Biblical loon to some who read the piece, I penned a piece for my blog earlier outlining my day’s investigation into the burning issue of how much wine, precisely was consumed during the times of the Bible. It was authentic to talk about a subject that has deeply interested me for some time (the society and diet of the Ancient Israelites!)
So these are the little baby steps I have been taking, trying to push through small measures of reluctance on my part to skirt around my true feelings — or, more commonly to frame them euphemistically, which is, ultimately, a form of intellectual dishonestly.
However pop-psychology-like as this will sound, I don’t think that the journey towards being as authentic as one can possibly be done overnight.
I know, intuitively, that it’s a process. And I also know, intuitively, that — having a terrible habit of bottling up my feelings — I have a very long way to go.
I still struggle to think, exactly, how I will need to make sure that I am as authentic, or more so, one day after the next.
That I don’t let up. Even for a single day (as the advice demanded). But I guess that that meditation can be part of the journey. And perhaps some sort of daily meditation into who I am and what I hope to achieve is the answer to giving that process the guidance and strategy it probably needs to succeed.
Do you have insight into what being authentic every day might mean?