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Living an Authentic Life
Humans by nature live inside of various performances. Identities, or personas, if you will, that have been created over our lifetimes. And, these created personas are learned through socialization.
Socialization is the process of learning about the world, and how you fit into it. Further, it is about the creation of the you that you know yourself to be. It is about learning the rules and “appropriate” behaviors for the myriad contexts we find ourselves in.
From the time we are very little, we are told who we are, what we are to do, and not do, and how we are to behave. We become mechanized into a certain pattern, or habit, of being. And, if we do not get pushed, or stumble on our own, outside of that habit, we will continue to live that way for all of our days.
However, if we are fortunate enough to have someone in our life push us outside of the habitual “me” or we have the same good fortune to discover it on our own, a whole new you can emerge.
The emergence of this “new” you is an iterative development process, which unfolds as you make new choices in familiar contexts. These new choices are not predicated on what you once knew. They are, rather, predicated only by the limits you put on yourself.
When we live within the narrow framework that we were given by our parents, extended family, and…
