Changing Authenticity

"To thine own self be true", the infamous words of Polonius in William Shakespheare's, "Hamlet", act 1 scene 3. The authenticity of a person ultimately is seen in how one view themselves, thus being what parts of themselves they allow for the world to see. Humans are very complex. In today's society the complexities of the human being gets misconstrued as "not being the authentic you'. However, our own individual unique complexities are in fact what make up our own authentic selves. Our world is FAST PACE everything. You can find anything online, and once it is on the web, it becomes a free for all for the media to add there spin to it, clouting judgement, along with society telling you who you should be or need to be. I guess I never took a bite of that apple because for me, like William Shakespheare's words in "Hamlet", I have always chosen to be true to my own self. At the end of each and every day it is me that I have to answer to about who I am and quite frankly it is none of my business what other people think about me.

I was born in 1979 and I was a month overdue. My parents realized before I was born that I was going to be pretty hard-headed, and well they were right. At birth my father gave me the nick name Stub. Everyone assumed my nickname was in reference to the fact I was so short and stubby, but dad in fact called me Stub due to my stubborness, even in coming into this world. I lived my life on a few firm beliefs, of course the first being, to ones self be true. The second being the day that you were born you draw your first breath, making way to your last breath, meaning that essentially we are all born dying, death is an inevitable part of life. Lastly but not least, no matter what the situation stand up for what you believe in.

There have been many times in my life that my core values of who I am have caused conflict within myself, as well as causing conflict outside of me in the situation. When we are conditioned to believe loyalty means no matter what and always stand by your man, going outside of the norm makes other people feel awkward when you do not fit inside of that tidy little box of conformity. Well, let' just say I do not fit in that tidy little box of conformity, so I often make people feel awkward. I am loyal, to a fault in fact. I also am an independent thinker, I am open, I am honest, at times I am told that I am to brutally honest, I am blunt and I am transparent. What you see is what you get. I stand up for what I believe in, not what I have been told I should think, or what others have told me is right, but what I know for myself is what I personally believe in. If I see something that I believe is an injustice or a wrong, I speak on it. The media does not get to tell me what my ideal body is supposed to look like. Last time I looked I am who has to walk around in this body, so shouldn't it be a body that is ideal to me not society? Conditioning and conformity are in a sense, a set up for failure. If I am conditioned, from birth, to believe that I should never weigh more than seventy five pounds and when I am a teen ager and hit a growth spurt, and sprout to five foot nine inches and therefore my weight goes up as well and now weigh one hundred pounds, I have failed. Why do we as a whole put these irrational beliefs as truth on one another and not expect a catastrophe to one day occur?

Well to each their own, but for me I am going to stick with being true to me first, because that is authentic. It is loyal. Happiness begins with loving me, in order to be lovable to anyone else.