Authenticity is Overrated
“You know who you are when you become independent enough to believe your own thoughts, and become responsible for your own actions, and you not only believe what you want, but you live what you believe.” ~ Matthew McConahay
A few years back I was at a conference and saw this dude give a talk on, well, I’m really not sure what the talk was about.
To be frank, the guy was a lunatic. He had no structure to his talk. He dropped an unusual number of f-bombs and kept doing masturbation gestures that seemed more like a bizarre tic than a strategic attention-grabber. He even got confrontational with an audience member.
To be frank(er), the talk worked — at least on the surface.
At dinner that night it was all my friends could talk about. I had to hand it to the guy. He was certainly different than any other speaker at the conference. The talk was entertaining (I think?) and he was a good public speaker; his articulation, his eye contact, and strategic pauses had us all locked in.
And although the takeaway was beyond me, a common theme became clear at dinner: “That guy was SO AUTHENTIC. He said whatever came to mind and didn’t care about who resonated with him and who didn’t.”
On the surface, authenticity is refreshing in a world full of political correctness and easily offended listeners. It’s aspirational in an environment where all we see is people’s Life Top Plays – beaches, brunches, fashion, and fitness across the internet leaving us unsure of what’s real and what’s staged.
It seems admirable and brave that he “said what the rest of us were thinking.” It can seem so freeing to not care about what others think and feel about us.
Being authentic is some of the most common advice peddled by the self-help world.
Be yourself.
Do you, boo.
Forget about what others think.
I think the admiration and pursuit of authenticity is well-intended. Why wouldn’t we want more open and honest communication, and deeper self-awareness and more self-congruence?
These are inherently good skills for life, but somewhere along the way we got lost. I now tend to believe that the pursuit authenticity is a terrible goal and tend to agree with entrepreneur Seth Godin when he said, “I think authenticity is a crock.”
I’ve come to view authenticity as the candy of personal values. It might be delicious in small doses and give us a jolt of energy (like our lunatic speaker), but we get sick when it becomes one of our major food groups.
Let’s dive into why authenticity is a “crock” (great word) and how to navigate being true to yourself in an interconnected world. The way I see it, there are four problems with the pursuit of authenticity..
Problem #1: It puts too much focus on the self
If you were to rank what Americans value the most, it’d be hard to top independence, self-expression, and individuality. The only things that come close are NFL Sundays, cheeseburgers, and ruining Thanksgiving by discussing politics.
We seem to be at the pinnacle of this self-focus/self-care/self-reliance movement (a good thing) but things are getting worse.
Loneliness is at an all-time high. Nearly 58% of American adults feel lonely and one out of four of us feel “deeply affected” by loneliness, making us exponentially more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, psychosis, and suicide. [1]
In the 1980s, people, on average said they had discussed personal matters with three people in the last six months. Today it’s zero. [2]
When the supreme values of a culture all become focused on the self, it’s no wonder that most of our relationships deteriorate until we are only left with – er—ourselves.
But humans aren’t built to go at it alone. We are incredibly social creatures that rely on community to survive and thrive. And the best way to create connection and communities are through principles that often directly oppose a focus on the self: obligation, sacrifice, openness to ideas.
It’s hard to carve out an hour to call your mom when you’re distracted by an overflowing inbox. We’re six times less likely to help somebody [3] out when we’re in a rush. And nearly 25% feel as if we’re in a rush “all of the time.”
But there’s value in sacrificing parts of the self for others. fMRI machines show us that when we spend our energies giving and focusing on others, the same areas of the brain light up as when we’re crushing a pint of Ben & Jerrys or find a $20 bill on the sidewalk. Psychologists call it a “givers glow.”
Not only does it make us feel good in the moment, it makes it more likely that others will show up for us when we inevitably need help.
Problem #2: It’s a cop-out for taking accountability
There are certain clichés that have always bothered me.
“It is what it is.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“I like floppy bacon.”
…to name a few.
Maybe I’ll get into those in another article (except the bacon one. Crispy bacon is THE ONLY WAY. Don’t @ me).
The other one is “I’m just being me” or some variation that signals to others that “It doesn’t really matter how you feel.” It’s often used as a free pass to do whatever you want and say whatever you think.
It’s a manifestation of what happens when authenticity becomes the supreme value. As long as I’m being myself, we think, not much else matters.
“If somebody is offended, that’s their problem. I was just being authentic.”
“It doesn’t matter if Danny likes his bacon crispy, because I like mine floppy… and raw… and gross.”
Frankly, this type of thinking is lazy at best. How nice must it be to avoid the work of being thoughtful, considerate, empathetic, or patient? It sounds so nice to just do and say whatever you want and be devoid of all consequences.
Some of the most important areas of life – career, relationships – require us to use tact, be responsive to others, and be accountable for the things we say and do. Human beings are complex, interconnected creatures. Although all of us are at the center of our own universe, we’re not the center of THE universe.
Problem #3: It’s Fake Freedom
In his book, Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope, author Mark Manson talks about a concept he calls “Fake Freedom.” In his version of Fake Freedom, we mistake variety for freedom. Because we get to choose between 63 variations of Cap’n Crunch we think life is amazing. We come to value things like variety, comfort, and convenience, and when these shallow ideals become our values, we become fragile, anxious, and addicted to novelty and short-term dopamine hits. So ironically, we become less free – trapped in a dungeon of unfulfillment, weak will, and angst.
To me, the pursuit of authenticity falls in this same boat. We think that by being authentic, we’ll be free from the shackles of “what other people think.”
But unless you’re a psychopath, you’ll always care about what people think. As long as you’re being true to yourself, the thinking goes, it doesn’t matter what other people think. In reality, you’ll never be free from the judgement of others no matter how authentic you become. If anything, you’ll become vulnerable to what Alan Watts called “The Backwards Law” – the harder you try to stop caring what others think the more you will.
The elixir isn’t self-expression, but self-acceptance. Accepting that you do care with other people think, especially those you love, and acceptance that sometime you might feel embarrassed, hurt, or ashamed at times. This is a part of the human experience. Don’t resist it, just do what the rest of us do and wash it down with a dirty martini.
No matter how authentic you become, you’ll never escape the weight of what others think about you. It’s not a bug of you, but a feature of the human experience. And paradoxically, by accepting that, you’ll be better able to navigate it.
Problem #4: It’s too rigid
In my early days of self-development I really struggled with a key component of authenticity: self-awareness. I found that there were two really clunky steps to self-awareness:
This first challenge is even knowing what I think and feel in first place.
All of Humans are notoriously bad at self-awareness.
We aren’t aware of what we do. A study from 1982 showed that people underestimated how much they ate in a day by a thousand calories — that’s like magically forgetting about eating two Big Macs. Most clients I’ve worked with estimate they walk between 5000-7000 steps per day but actually walked less than 2000. We drastically overestimate our intelligence, trustworthiness, happiness, and driving ability.
And we aren’t aware of who we are. When being authentic comes up, I always wonder who we’re supposed to be authentic to? Our inner child? The emotions of the moment? Who we aspire to be? What the difference in the man I show up as with my guy friends versus with my wife? Something tells me the voice you use in your work email is not the same voice you use with your college friends.
We’re all complex, dynamic, emotional beings who show up differently depending on the context, and we all do a little self-presentation from time to time.
The second challenge of self-awareness is that even when we do have an understanding of ourselves, expressing it in an accurate way can be challenging. Most of us have a limited emotional vocabulary because it’s not something most of us have been taught.
So in a world where the self is nuanced and the expression of that self is difficult, authenticity is waaaay it’s too rigid. It’s a limiting view of the self. London Business School professor Herminia Ibarra says, “When we view authenticity as an unwavering sense of self, we struggle to take on new challenges and bigger roles. The reality is that people learn, and change, who they are through experience.”
It’s important that we hold a flexible view of ourselves (which inherently means being open to being inauthentic at times). Jennifer Beer out of the University of Texas, found in her research that “Shy people with a more flexible view of themselves are substantially more likely to strike up a conversation with strangers than shy people with a fixed mindset [i.e. a rigid view on themselves].”
So where does this leave us?
To me, authenticity isn’t about saying whatever thought comes to your mind. It isn’t about saying wild shit to stand out. It isn’t the pursuit of your own desires at the cost of others. And it isn’t not caring what others think.
It’s about the exploration and understanding of the self. It’s an expanded self-awareness of who you are now – your beliefs, values, personal story – and who you want to become. It’s having a flexible view of yourself. It’s about accepting yourself, warts and all. It’s about the wisdom of knowing when to speak and when to listen. It’s about acting in line with your beliefs but allowing yourself room to change and mess up.
I’m not necessarily anti-authenticity (although it sounds like it), I just think we’ve over-corrected. I don’t like that we value it above far more important things. And, hot take, it’s the value of children. Because to be an adult, we must:
Consistently show up when we don’t feel like it
Put others needs before our own (at times)
Take complete responsibility for our actions
Do the right thing (even when it’s hard.. especially when it’s hard)
Keep our promises and following through on our world
Embody values outside of ourselves (compassion, service, openness to ideas, etc.)
All of which go against the authenticity credo.
So this is my call to forget authenticity. Instead, find something outside of yourself to work on to develop true purpose and meaning. Shift your focus to higher-order values. And understand that as humans, we’re constantly changing and evolving… and that’s a good thing. If you’re not embarrassed by who you were 5 years ago, you’re probably not growing enough.
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[1] King, Marissa. Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection. Penguin Publishing Group, 2020. (pg. 12).
[2] Manson, Mark. Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope. HarperCollins Publishers, 2019.
[3] Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). "From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(1), 100–108. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034449