Think of a person you respect for his or her honesty, for his or her openness, for his or her integrity. You know a few people like this, right? Pick one, and think about that person for a moment.
This person feels real to you. Genuine. Authentic. It’s refreshing to be around this person, to get to know this person, to interact with him or her. We feel safe around authentic people, as if we could reveal to them our deepest darkest secrets, as if we could trust them with anything.
And when we get to know these people on a deeper level—when we establish a connection with them—it’s refreshing to find out that they are who we thought they were all along, that beneath the surface they are authentically themselves.
Authentic people have no agenda, and yet they have aspirations. Authentic people are trustworthy, and yet sometimes they fall short. Authentic people are awesome, and yet sometimes they are superficial. Authentic people care enough to listen, and yet sometimes they don’t hear everything that’s said. Authentic people can weather the storm, and yet they get wet in doing so.
Authentic people are passionate, content, carefree, calm, kind, and helpful—and yet authentic people are still people, they are human beings, and thus they worry, possess doubt, and make mistakes and bad decisions.
Authentic people are fallible, just like me and you. Authentic people are flawed, just like me and you. Authentic people are fearful, just like me and you. Authentic people are tempted by lust and greed—by all the trappings of this world—just like me and you.
None of us are perfect, but we all have the capacity to be authentic, to remove the pretense and the facade from our repertoire and just be ourselves, to be authentically me and you.
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