Your Authentic Self

Your Authentic Self.

We live in a time where being yourself is exceptionally challenging for most people. Our social media-obsessed society teaches us to wear masks and falsely represent our true selves to impress people we do not know and are not being their authentic selves to gain likes and followers. This creates a genuine issue because our society is changing into a culture where people have to keep up personas in fear of being exposed as a fake when their authentic selves are not given a chance to grow. The issue with this is that people are not learning to value what makes them unique.

Now more than ever, people feel pressured to meet unrealistic beauty standards, causing people to develop mental health issues, identity issues, and severe problems with body dysmorphia. The effects of social media marketing and advertising are causing many people to adopt materialistic mindsets. This is only magnified by likes as people equate likes and reposts as value.

All of this is causing unneeded and dangerous pressure to be placed on teenagers and society when we really should accept people for who they are and encourage people to grow as individuals, not clones of the latest influencer. Countless studies correlate teenage depression, anxiety, and even suicide with social media addiction and overuse.

Changing the Narrative

When We Become More, We Do Not Need More.

The three primary relationships that are expressed through social media are:

Doing – “Look what I Can Do.” This attitude is used mainly by people hoping for a return in likes or marketing a product or brand. Do not get me wrong; there is a need for marketing on social media, and I would be a complete hypocrite if I denied using this to promote my products. But I believe a lack of authenticity affects our society negatively, will hopefully change soon.

Having – “Look at all my shiny things” This is showing off for people who you do not know and, if they did, would probably not like you ( because you’re not genuine). Collecting objects and showing them off on social media does nothing positive for anyone, especially those doing it.

Realness/ Being Authentic – When people show who they indeed are and act from a place of authenticity, it helps share that person’s experience with others in a way that inspires, motivates, and encourages people to be REAL.

I hope that we see more of this as time goes on. I crave deeply a different algorithm fueled by positivity, knowledge, kindness, and laughter. Can you show me something real? Can you inspire me to want to be more? If not, that’s okay, but please stop pump-faking people with

disingenuous videos of fake insincerity, disingenuous acts of kindness, and mindless content. Just be yourself and grow into who you truly want to be.

You Are Enough

In our lives, we all have challenges in which we question how we define ourselves. If we choose to define ourselves based on our values, beliefs, and personalities, we must be cautious about assessing who we are in the present instead of who we have been in the past. And, we must think beyond unhealthy labels—those we place on ourselves and those outside sources place on us. Stop feeling pressured to live up to unattainable standards by television and social media influencers following an algorithm and being yourself. We cannot be defined simply by what we do, what we have done in the past, or how many likes we have. In our most authentic nature, who we are is based upon our core beliefs—those we hold about ourselves and those we embrace as universal truths.