Authenticity is being true to yourself. It is being who you really are versus who others want you to be. It is being true to a set of values, morals or principles that define a good life. It is defining oneself and not letting others define you. “In existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which a person’s actions are congruent with their values and desires, despite external pressures to social conformity.” — Wikipedia
What do you want your life to be like? What will you stand up for? What is worth living for and dying for? These questions frame a Search for Authenticity which will continue our entire lives. It is not that we never find authenticity, it is that as our roles change in life, the meaning of authenticity will change. We must continually redefine ourselves in terms of being authentic.
It will not matter whether you are rich or poor, whether you are educated or uneducated. It will not matter who you know or what you know. Authenticity comes from the heart and soul and not from the brain. You cannot buy authenticity. You cannot acquire authenticity by fame or fortune. Knowing celebrities and being a celebrity are no guarantees of authenticity. You cannot go to school and get a degree in authenticity. Think for a minute. Who is the most authentic person you know? What makes them authentic?
Two things have escaped me in my life. When I was young, I wanted to be rich and famous. Often, I still dream of it. Not an unusual desire given American values. Over the years, I have read many books about famous people. I have read most of the great philosophers. I studied a Harvard Business course on the histories of the richest entrepreneurs like Getty, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Mellon. These were the predecessors of Gate, Musk, and Buffett. The results would show that I am nowhere near successful in my twin goals. Neither fortune nor fame has cast its shadow over my life. Perhaps I am blessed because of this. Knowing how immature and ungrateful that I have often been, either the money or fame would have been squandered or it would have destroyed me.
Today, I am happier than I have ever been. I have more than some people and less than others. I have good friends and a loving wife and sister. My ex-relationship with my daughter is not wonderful but it is no longer on rocky grounds. What does my life have to do with authenticity? Why my story here? Well, over the years I have pondered the reasons that my goals of fame and fortune were never attained. My answer lies in what it means to be authentic.
I have never chosen money over knowledge. Money has never been as important to me as learning and education. I would sooner spend an afternoon in a library as in an office. I have never chosen money over ethics. My clients always knew that I would tell them the truth, even if it was not always tactfully done. I never dreamed of getting ahead in business by developing a network of influential friends or meeting clients on the golf course. In fact, I purposely never learned to play golf. I wanted to be respected for what I knew and not who I knew. This is a major mistake in the world of commerce. When my boss at the consulting firm asked me where my list of contacts was for networking, I was befuddled. I had to go back into his office and ask him to explain networking to me.
Being a rich successful businessperson was not in my genes. I came to accept that fact over time. The answer for how you get to Carnegie Hall is “Practice, practice, practice.” I was never willing to take the time to be a businessperson. I would rather do other things like travel and meet new people, see new places and explore new ideas. I would not practice the skills needed to succeed in business. I valued time more than money.
I also was not willing to take the risks needed to be an entrepreneur. I remember reading a biography of the great African American entrepreneur John Johnson who founded Ebony Magazine. When he needed money to meet a deadline for publishing an issue of Ebony, he pawned his mom’s furniture. He had already invested his last cent in the business. It would be interesting to know what his mom said when she came home and found her furniture gone. I was never a risk taker when it came to money. I still have never bought a lottery ticket. I cannot imagine hocking my furniture much less my mom’s furniture.
Being authentic means being true to who you are in spirit. Integrity and authenticity go hand in hand. Integrity is upholding those unique values and virtues that make you authentic. Oxford Online dictionary defines integrity as: “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.” If you say that you value honesty, then you must practice honesty. If you say that you value truth, then you must practice truthfulness. If you say that you value democracy, then you must support democratic values and principles. First though, you must ask yourself what it is that makes you alive? What makes you human? What is truly meaningful to you? The answers to these questions will determine your integrity. People with little or no integrity can be authentic. There are authentically “bad” people. However, I believe that authenticity must always be allied with good character development and that means authenticity must meld with integrity. Unfortunately, it seems that sometimes the two do not find each other.
Today we are faced with a tsunami of public figures who seem to have no integrity. Lawyers lie and spin devious schemes to protect their clients and themselves. Politicians take oaths and contributions from PACs which ensure that they will ignore the will of the majority. Sports figures use their influence to take advantage of others. Celebrities have no qualms about ethics and will do anything to continue their celebrity status. So called journalists are more interested in advertising revenue than in the veracity or merits of any news.
Being authentic only has merit if you also have integrity. Father Stokhal of Demontreville used to say that if you do bad actions, you can tell yourself all day long that you are a good person, but you will never be good until you stop the bad actions. If you have grievous character defects such as lying and cheating others, being true to yourself has no merits or value to the world. Jesus said that if the salt loses its flavor, what good is it. Socrates believed that the ultimate goal of human existence was not just to live but to live a good, meaningful, and virtuous life. A good life was guided by virtue and moral principles. Being authentic means to find the virtues and morals that will help you to lead a good life. Integrity is sticking to those virtues and morals that you believe in through thick and thin. You do what is right regardless of what others may think or how much you may or may not profit by your actions. Here is an example of the lack of authenticity and integrity that plagues politics today. This concerns the upcoming Republican debate.
Yesterday, I was reading the following story on several different news outlets. One headline on the N.Y. Times read “Defend Trump and ‘Hammer’ Ramaswamy: DeSantis Allies Reveal Debate Strategy.” The principal points that the coaches suggested to DeSantis were as follows:
- Take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy, the political newcomer who is rising in the polls.
- Defend Donald Trump when Chris Christie inevitably attacks the former president.
- Attack Joe Biden and the media no less than three to five times.
If the guidance above does not smell to you as garbage, then I apologize. But please don’t tell us that “Well, this is politics.” I hope we all expect more of our politicians than people who ignore authenticity and integrity to score cheap points in a debate. Nevertheless, this is what politics in America has become. Now there always was and always will be devious and unethical methods used to get elected. Study the history of Thomas Jefferson and you can see the media at work two hundred and fifty years ago to smear his name because of his alleged affair with a slave named Sally Hemings. But if we don’t start expecting more, when will things change?
We may be at a crossroads in America. A large percentage of people no longer respect politicians and lawyers (they seem to go together). Many people are clamoring for less government. Governmental agencies have lost a great deal of their former influences due to the actions of our leaders.
A study on respect for government found the following:
A Pew Research Center survey finds that just 20% of Americans say they trust the federal government just about always or most of the time. — Dec 5, 2021
Two studies on feelings towards lawyers in the USA found:
In a Gallup poll from 2015, only 4% of respondents rated the “honesty and ethical standards” of lawyers as “very high.” In that same poll, more than one-third (34%) rated attorneys’ honesty and ethical standards as low (25%) or very low (9%).
A landmark study for the American Bar Association found even harsher truths underlying the popular perception of attorneys:
74% of those surveyed agreed that “lawyers are more interested in winning than in seeing that justice is served.”
69% believed “lawyers are more interested in making money than in serving their clients.”
These studies were done eight years ago. I would bet you a 100 to 1 that feelings towards lawyers today are even worse than they were eight years ago. Former Vice President Pence recently referred to “Trump’s gaggle of crack pot lawyers.” Trump and eighteen other cohorts have now been indicted in respect to his scheme to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Seven of those indicted were lawyers. If you ever believed that lawyers follow a “Code of Ethics” you may well wonder where Trump’s lawyers went to school.
You might wonder if authenticity and integrity are just for the average person. It certainly seems that “above” average people including the rich and famous do not subscribe to the same playbook that is recommended for the rest of us. Why then worry about a “Search for Authenticity?” Will it keep you happy? Will it make a difference in your life? Here is what some other people and religions have to say about it.
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” ― Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
“If you don’t know who you truly are, you’ll never know what you really want.” ― Roy T. Bennett
“Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.” — James 5:12 ESV
“The objective of Islamic ethics is to illuminate the virtues that enable a person to perfect his or her humanity.” — Omar Qureshi, Finding the Authentic Self
“In Buddhism, living authentically means living with honesty and being willing to look at your own illusions and self-deceptions. It also means questioning your self-images and self-limiting identities, and examining the stories you weave about yourself.” — Tricycle, The Buddhist Review
Conclusions:
- Do not believe what I am telling you. Search for your own authenticity.
- Find out what it means to “Be Yourself.” What is yourself?
- Find a mentor, partner or someone who will be honest with you. Do an authenticity check with them every so often. Ask them if you are an authentic person.
- Who do you most admire? Are they authentic? Do they have integrity? If not, why do you admire them?
- Are you voting for and supporting people who are authentic and have integrity? Why not?
- What barriers exist in your life to being authentic?
Next week we will look at Man/Woman’s Search for Love.
I doubt that a person ever existed who did not want or search for love. Love is older than the Greek gods, older than the Bible, older than the universe. Everyone knows what love is and no one knows what love is. Everyone wants love but few really know how to give love. Love may be the most frequently used word in any language. It is probably the most frequently misused word in any language as well. We search for love and many of us will never find it. Some of us will find it at a very old age and some will find it while very young. No amount of arguing will ever stop anyone from looking for love.
- Arabic: حب (habb)
- Chinese: 爱 (ài)
- Filipino: Pag-ibig
- Swahili: upendo
- Hindi — मोहब्बत (mohabbat)
- Indonesian: cinta
- Japanese: 愛 (ai)
- Persian: عشق (ishq)
- Punjabi: ਪਿਆਰ (pyaar)
- Russian: любовь (lyubov’)
- Spanish: Amor
PS:
At the first Republican debate Wednesday night, Seven of the eight Republican presidential candidates on the debate stage raised their hands to confirm that they would support former President Trump as the 2024 GOP nominee, even if Trump is convicted in a court of law. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson was the only candidate to keep his hand down. Some readers have commented that one or the other of these candidates have set themselves apart from Trump and are no longer sycophants. I think these raised hands are enough evidence to prove that there is little or no integrity in the Republican Leadership today.
I think of the places I have been. Their memories come randomly. Sometimes I remember being 16 at the New York Worlds Fair in 1964. Roaming around by myself with no particular agenda. The Vatican Pieta exhibit really made an impression on me. Then it was my year in Biloxi, Mississippi. Scuba diving off Ship Island whenever I could get a break from my Air Force duties. Unalakleet, Alaska where I spent a year on a remote mountain top off the Bering Sea. Dating Eskimos and Indians who were the first women I ever really cared about. After leaving Alaska for Wisconsin, I developed a whole new family to start life with as a responsible father and husband.
There are many lists of “places” to see but much fewer lists of great events to see. Events are harder to find. Some occur every year like the Newport Jazz Festival and others are one off events like the Woodstock Music Festival. We frequently do not find out about events until they are over. In our travels, Karen and I have discovered posters of local events. Generally, they are not within our travel dates, or they have already occurred. Sometimes though we have been lucky enough to “trip” over an event and attend it. On occasion, it has been through the advice of local people who have told us about the event.
In one of my blogs, I noted the distinction between being a tourist and being a pilgrim. One definition of a tourist is “A person visiting a place for pleasure.” My definition of a pilgrim is non-religious. You do not have to be on a sacred mission to be a pilgrim. I propose the idea of a pilgrim as someone who takes part in the cultures they are visiting. Someone who is not looking in from the outside like at a visitor to a Hawaiian Luau but someone who joins the celebrants. They say there are three types of people. Those who do not know that there is a parade. Those who watch the parade. Those who are in the parade. Tourists are watchers. Pilgrims are in the parade. In many of our travels, Karen and I have managed to “be in the parade” at least for a short while.
We have so many memories of friends met during travels. Friends such as Alex and Heidi in Cervelló, Spain enriched our lives and made our trip to Spain more than memorable. Xibo and Mary were friends we met on our Chinese trip in 1989. They accompanied us on several adventures in China. Years later, we helped them to emigrate to the USA. They now live in San Francisco with their daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. In Seoul, we attended a birthday party for our grandson Sam after our adopted Korean daughter Susan found her birth mother. A year after Sam was born, we traveled back with Susan to Korea for the celebration of his one-year birthday with Susan and her birth family.
A “Last Man Standing Bottle” includes some of the most interesting people I ever met in Frederic, Wisconsin. We would gather every weekday in the town library to discuss books, politics, guns, cars, ideology, and any other ideas brought up. We agreed 10 years ago to create this iconic “Bottle” for our coffee group. Since putting the Old Granddad Bourbon in a beautiful case with a pendant that had our names on it, four of our members have passed away. The group disbanded with the advent of Covid and was never resurrected. The bottle now sits in a case at the Frederic Train Museum along with many other relics from Frederic. I am 76 years old and the youngest of the three remaining bottle members. The shadows of Dick, Jerry, Brian, and Ken periodically go through my mind. I remember each of them so vividly in respect to ideas, but their physical aspects are just lingering shadows who periodically are guests of my thoughts.
When we are born, we are compared to growth charts and Gesell Developmental schedules. for our development. Lag behind and your parents will be worried. As we grow up, we get compared to sisters, brothers, cousins, and others. Who has not heard the comment “You are just like your father,” or “your sister had straight A’s when she was your age.” In school, we will be tested from kindergarten through college on a variety of measures designed to see how we stack up. Each state will routinely rate the children in a school district or region to compare to other children in the country. Children and schools are then ranked and rated from best to worst. Everyone with any eyes and a brain knows that the school districts with the most money will almost always have the highest rated schools.
About fifteen years ago, I wanted to test out a hypothesis. Forbes Magazine each year publishes its list of 200 richest people in the world. It gives a great deal of information about each person such as schooling and net worth. I wanted to test whether or not a college degree made a difference in net worth. I added up the overall net worth of all college graduates and compared it to the overall net worth of all those who did not complete college. About fifty five percent of the Forbes richest people had either a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree. The remaining forty five percent either did not enter college or did not finish college. Who do you think earned more money? Imagine my surprise to find that the average net worth of non-college degreed rich people was 3.5 billion dollars compared to 2.5 billion dollars for degreed people. All the hype on college degrees may just help make colleges richer.
In the next few weeks, I want to add four other searches to Dr. Frankl’s search. I believe that these are equally important to most of us. In fact, I might argue that to the average person, some of these other searches will dictate most of their lives. A particular search might take precedence over all others and drive how the person behaves, what goals they have and how they organize the daily activities of their lives.
When you adopt the Packers, you become a member of the Green Bay Packer Fan Club. Being accepted gives you a new identity. You are a Packer Backer, a Cheese Head. Being accepted means you now represent something great. You are part of one of the best football teams of all time. You can put your Packer shirt on proudly and everywhere you go in Wisconsin, you will be admired. You are no longer just Jane Doe.
The first question anyone must answer is what do they expect to get out of the group? What kind of acceptance are you looking for? To borrow from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I think we must ask what need we are trying to fulfil by joining this group. Are we hoping to get an acceptance that will meet our needs for basic survival, our need for security, our need for love and friendship, our need for self-esteem or our need for self-development. Many groups yield benefits in all these areas once a person is accepted into the group. However, I think it is very important to be clear from the start what you expect to get by joining any group. This first question is a prelude to the second question.
What will gaining acceptance into this group cost me? The line from Matthew, 16:26 reminds us that, “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul?” Every human endeavor or activity comes with some cost. In business terms, we use a Cost Benefit Analysis to determine if the benefits will justify the costs. In terms of acceptance there may be costs beyond money to joining any group or club. You may find social and emotional costs attached to a membership. Will the benefits of acceptance by this group justify these costs? Do you have to sell your soul to the devil to get the benefits? The Mafia makes members take an oath never to “rat” on anyone regardless of what they have done. Many organizations have rules and codes which put the good of the group ahead of the good of society. Partisanship in politics is another example of where loyalty to a party soon negates the very reason that many people went into politics. Good intentions often go down the drain when a person is faced with losing acceptance in their identity group.
Despite attending forty 3-day Jesuit retreats and regularly going to church with my spouse, I remain adamantly somewhere between an Atheist and an Agnostic. See my blog 
I can see some positive sides to a church ideology that addressee inner spirituality, but I think it has serious drawbacks. You can focus too much on what I will call the “inner spirituality” of church members. The reasoning behind the emphasis on inner spirituality can be faulty. The theory is that if each member becomes a better Christian, they will be better neighbors towards others. If they feed the hungry and cloth the poor, they will be ridding the world of the evils that Jesus preached against. Unfortunately, these propositions are not evidenced by historical fact. For hundreds of years many Christians supported slavery and sexism by doing little or nothing to condemn or speak out against it. Furthermore, many Christians were major protagonists of racism and sexism. If their ministers spoke out against it, it obviously made little difference. Being a card carrying member of a Christian church never seems to correlate with ending war, sexism, racism, homophobia or even poverty. I think without an equal emphasis on “Outer Spirituality” Christianity is a worthless religion.
There are many definitions of spirituality. What does it mean to be a spiritual person? Some people lean towards accepting a higher being or creator. Some lean towards accepting a more conventional religious perspective. Many on-line definitions list several factors necessary to be a spiritual person. My own definition is much simpler. I think being a spiritual person involves two elements. The first is seeking meaning in one’s life. The second is seeking purpose. Meaning is inner spirituality. Purpose is outer spirituality. Meaning and purpose must go beyond what is simply good for oneself and must embrace what is good for humanity and the universe. Thus, a truly spiritual person is one who finds and balances inner and outer spirituality.
Nevertheless, we still have the occasional spat, and they usually leave us both feeling quite depressed and disappointed. I am mostly disappointed with myself for not handing things well. It seems I too often say things or discuss things very differently than we have agreed on. We have found and used many models for dealing with conflict. One of our favorites is the “DESC” model. This stands for “Describe” what is happening in neutral terms. Talk about how this makes you feel in terms of “Emotions.” “Specify” what you would like to see happen differently. Define what the “Consequences” will or could be for change. Consequences are best provided that are positive, such as we will feel closer together. When we stick to this model things seem to go well. Our discussions stay on track and our resolutions come more effortlessly. When we stray from the model, accusations and insinuations escalate and the discussion becomes difficult if not painful.
The other kind of kindness I will call “Emotional Kindness.” This is not doing things but saying things either verbal or non-verbal that honor and appreciate the other person. It respects their feelings more than their actions. It might be “I love you” or it might be an appreciation of something the other person says or thinks. It is building up the other person’s self-esteem and not putting down anything they might express or care about.
Once upon a time a mother had two daughters. The Mom’s name was Teresa. The oldest daughter was named Romela, and the younger daughter was Amelia. At the time of this story, the oldest daughter was 20. Amelia had just turned 18. Teresa was 45 and a single mom. Their father had been gone for ten years after running off with their babysitter. Teresa never remarried or even dated. She was a rather plain looking woman. Marriage had taught her that men preferred sex appeal over brains, beauty over character and youth over age. She tried to teach these lessons to her daughters and kept a close watch on both.
