what does it mean to be authentic?
one year of full time work + social connection thesis essay #1
It’s been one year and three months since I graduated college and entered what they call the “real world”. For me, that journey has looked like a move to New York City, a year of working a corporate 9-5, and stumbling through the playbook of how to adult.
Despite there being a million things to do and eat and stare at, my brain space has largely been preoccupied with casual social experimentation and a developing thesis on human connection.
I’ve always been intrigued by people and their interiorities, but moving to the big apple and taking in this new environment has made me question everything I knew about friendship, love, and who we really are when we’re stripped of the exterior shells. In a city where the symbols, status, and aesthetics rule all, how do we develop genuine connection?
As I’ve been grappling with establishing new roots and routines, I’ve also been actively experimenting with different social environments, topics of conversation, and ways of getting to know people deeply. I've learned a lot this past year, and I’m tired of waiting until I have fully cohesive conclusions to share—so this is essay # 1 on my early 20s social experimentation thesis.
observing authenticity
A few months ago a friend sent me an essay about sparkly people and how to find them. I resonated a lot with the piece because I too have been trying to put into words the patterns of what makes certain people just so magnetic. Her essay does a great job of identifying some markers she's observed in the sparkly people in her life, and it’s inspired me to make some observations of my own.
One of my favorite qualities to find in another human being is a strong sense of authenticity. It’s a complicated quality that takes observed evidence over a prolonged period of time to confirm, but as I’ve immersed myself more in experimental social scenarios over the last year, I’ve noticed some similarities between people who I find to come across as authentic:
They are upfront and honest with themselves, and then also with everyone else.
They have a sense of self, they know what their values are, and they always act accordingly.
They take great care to let down the walls to their head and their hearts. They allow themselves to be seen.
They are just as curious about the details of how other’s interiorities are furnished—from the organization of their most complex thought patterns to the silly little paintings on the walls. They are gifted in identifying and accepting the mental models of others. They can see people.
Typically, they are also great at forging unconventional paths and speaking out for what they believe.
But good authentic people do not just bulldoze through society to “be true to themselves”.
They do not necessarily have a strong or abrasive personality.
Nor are they necessarily extroverted. It does not matter how people express themselves to themselves and others, just that they do.
They are not simply selfish, arrogant people who voice everything that they believe and push for their way.
In disagreements, they are not argumentative but rather transparent and understanding.
Defining authenticity in words is interesting to me because it feels important and also nuanced in a tangly way. As a result, this list will always be a work in progress that I want to continue to develop through more conversation and life experience.
I will spend the rest of this essay divulging in some questions about authenticity that I have yet to answer.
what does it mean to be inauthentic?
To define what it means to be authentic, let’s first identify what is not authentic behavior.
It is not authentic to be fake. For example, to be nice to someone’s face while talking shit behind their backs is not authentic behavior—this is widely accepted. However, there are several examples of behaviors that are more gray on the spectrum of authenticity.
One of the hotter takes that I have is that I don’t mind when people fake niceties. In fact, I often prefer it. When I moved to LA from the East Coast a few years ago, several people warned me that the people in LA are “fake nice”, as opposed to people from the Northeast, who are blunt, honest, and “say it like it is”.
I never felt this way when I actually lived in LA. Everyone seemed to walk with more pep in their step and it just felt like the strangers I interacted with were just nicer. Strangers said hello, they complimented my shoes, and always told me to have a nice day. They keep the vibes up, and I think that it’s a beautiful thing regardless of whether they really meant it.
Perhaps I am naive, but some of the people I find most authentic are always great vibe-keepers when there’s no expectation for the niceties.
I understand that the niceness of strangers can be a performance, but it seems to me that that might be okay. There is a line somewhere where the "fake nice” performance causes real consequences. However, I think these consequences are much more likely to come out of deeper interpersonal relationships where there is a difference in expectations and vulnerability, rather than interactions amongst strangers around town.
Overall, the authenticity spectrum to me seems like it’s grayscale and we might all differ in where we draw the line on fakeness.
are you a cat or a dog or a chameleon?
I recently read a piece about how pseudonyms give us agency. One idea behind the essay is that we are all carrying multiple identities with us and these identities are how we interface with the outside world. I quite like this way of thinking about identity because I have always felt that we’re each too complicated to ever fully label. Yet, in this hectic and lonely world, categorization is one of the easiest ways to feel like we belong. Despite complaining about being perceived all the time, there’s a natural inclination to care about how other people see us.
I have been meeting a ton of new people lately and the topic of conversation almost always seems to land on first impressions, guessing each other’s personality types, or intense discussion about whether we are more cat or more dog. Recently, a coworker told me that I am dawn, but only after pulling an all-nighter…(1) I’ve also gotten that I give panda, eggplant, and a bijillion different MBTI combinations. (2)
I consider these conversations indulgent personal market research. They help us to identify how other people see us and occasionally help us to better understand ourselves. They can help us to feel seen or make us question everything. Maybe these discussions have the potential to cause pitfalls in how we perceive ourselves too, but mostly they are just good fun because the girlies love to be perceived.
The workplace is an obvious example of an environment where we may want to appear in a carefully curated way. Many of my friends and I have been working full-time for a year now, and for lack of a better word, it’s weird.
One of my friends, Z, joined my team at work recently. Since joining, she’s told me a few times that she’s noticed how non-performative I can be at work. I had never gotten this one before, and I think I don’t quite understand it. I’ll be the first to admit that I can be quite oblivious, and maybe that’s why I never noticed that people were performing.
After discussing this phenomenon with several friends over the last few weeks, I’ve learned that many of them have adopted corporate interfaces that are quite deviant from their hanging-out-with-Ashley interface. K even told me that his coworkers would be shocked if they met me and saw how we interacted.
The workplace is a great example of a nuanced social-political environment where we may choose to bring out more deviant identities. But perhaps these identities are not inauthentic but rather just different variations of our authentic selves—more on this later.
I used to have a friend who was always equated to a chameleon in those what-animal-would-you-be rabbit-hole conversations because she blended into so many different environments with ease. I always admired that about her. One day, she confided in me that she found it offensive that everyone thought she would mold herself into every environment just to fit in. This was a complete surprise to me because I thought of it as a compliment. Isn’t it a compliment that you can get along with everyone? You must be so multi-faceted, versatile, and well-rounded!
Years later, I’ve concluded that we all naturally chameleon into every new environment. Maybe some of us are more naturally versatile than others, but it seems only natural that different sides of ourselves are activated by different people and settings.
To me, being authentic is about letting those identities come out to play.
does authenticity exist without inauthenticity?
The next point I want to make almost negates my entire purpose for trying to define authenticity in the first place.
For me, it sometimes feels like defining authenticity is like asking whether the chicken or the egg came first. It seems impossible to be true to yourself 100% of the time. My theory is that to be authentic to yourself, you must at times be “inauthentic”.
I shall provide a few examples.
when our feelings contradict
Sometimes there are parts of ourselves that are at odds with each other and certain scenarios can cause the contradictions to rear their ugly little heads.
A common simple dilemma among my friends and I is when we face the decision of whether or not to attend a social commitment. On one hand, maybe I’m dead tired or feeling ill or have an early morning tomorrow—to be true to how I feel is to cancel on my friend. On the other hand, I only see these friends every once in a while or maybe it’s my best friend’s birthday party and it will mean a lot to her if I show up—to be true to myself is also to be a good friend, suck it up, and try to have a blast. Sometimes I’ll go with one option and other times the other. Usually, I pacify myself by deciding that what is most true to myself is achieving a balance. (3)
A more controversial value is the desire to fit in and whether that can be an authentic value. At it’s core, the desire to fit in is not inherently bad; maybe it’s even human nature. Usually, it’s easier to fit in because the paths are already paved and everyone else is already on that path too.
I find that interacting with common vices like alcohol and social media are great examples of wanting to fit in.
When I was in college, I experimented a little bit with drinking and going to parties even though I never actually cared for those experiences at their face value. I often felt plain bad when I drank, I’m not really a night person, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not see past how suffocating and sticky those frat basements were. But even in my present-day slightly-more-mature-23-year-old body, I sometimes find myself doing these things even though those environments feel so far away from who I am at my core and what I enjoy.
At face value, these excursions are inauthentic for me and sometimes just driven by a fleeting fear of missing out. Yet, these decisions are often also driven by my genuine desire for social connection, making friends, and exciting experiences.
Over the last year, I quit alcohol. As in I didn’t drink a single drop for more than 365 days. Being sober, even at bars, felt true to myself. Lately, I’ve been having a few drinks here and there again. Interestingly enough, this also feels true to myself.
I’ve learned that we can align with many contradicting feelings and thoughts. Maybe to be true to myself is to allow for all of it to coexist.
during periods of change
While discussing what it means to be authentic with Z, she suggested a potential litmus test for gauging if we are being authentic: how much effort does it take for me to act this way?
This seems to be a perfectly fair question to ask ourselves. To be someone else is exhausting while to be at home in ourselves comes naturally. In general, it’s a productive question for testing what we like and who we are. Yet, there are many other external factors involved in the outcome of this question.
Also, can we be fully authentic during periods of intentional change?
I have found that faking it is, to some extent, an inherent part of change. There are some behaviors that feel natural or almost innate. Like I could’ve come out of the womb this way. Oftentimes though, we are the way we are and do the things we do because we have become this way.
When I read Atomic Habits a few years ago, I learned that it takes 66 days to form a new habit. To me, those are 66 days of being true to your desires and values by forcing your actions and behavior to deviate from the natural norm. This begs the question of if, then, we are being authentic during those 66 days.
If I think back to how I’ve changed over the last few years, several of my current most natural qualities and habits today are the result of me channeling the “fake it til you make it” mindset. I was not a reader, until I forced myself to read regularly over a sustained period of time, and now I am a reader. This same arch applies to many of my favorite identities today.
in different environments
Some environments are especially likely to bring out our contradicting values.
For instance, how individuals behave in the workplace is another common example of authentic inauthenticity. In an environment where artificial power dynamics and natural competition are baked in (performance reviews, promotion standards, and the pressure of having to earn money to literally pay rent) are we ever really free to be our authentic selves? What if who we are at home or to our friends is not professional?
In just my first year of working in corporate full-time, it feels like I’ve exchanged a lifetime of corporate dilemmas with my peers that all come back to being our authentic selves at work. Over boozy brunches and frantic midnight facetime calls, we’ve confided in each other about sending emails that don’t feel like us, working overtime on projects that bore us beyond belief, and how to manage people when we maybe we shouldn’t have that kind of authority yet (or ever?).
It’s healthy to question whether our actions align with who we are. Sometimes we realize that they don’t and we stop doing them. Other times, we realize that they don’t but we continue playing the game because perhaps our desires to be different or for the outcome is still authentic.
At the end of the day, I’m left wondering if it is even possible to align our desires to our actions and to how we are coming across to everyone else. It seems tough if not impossible to do all the time. And even if we could, is that even what it means to be an authentic person?
why do i care?
As I meet more and more people in this exciting experimental chapter of my early 20s, I’m coming to the realization that right now is a critical time for me to build my character and my circles. I care deeply about journeying through life with interesting and inspiring people (amongst other important traits of course!). In this stage of life, authentic people are incredibly attractive and cool to me, and I hope to selfishly surround myself with an unashamedly authentic circle that encourages me to be more myself as well.
I share this work-in-progress imperfect compilation of thoughts about this because in general, I believe that writing, even in the form of a list or semi-scattered thoughts, to put vital topics around the human experience into words is a beautiful craft that can allow us to see each other. Maybe a clear definition of authenticity isn’t critical to our overall life satisfaction, but it seems plausible that agreeing on how to be authentic and how to find authentic people could make me happier.
:)
footnotes:
(1) He also made sure to point out the difference between dawn after an all-nighter and dawn when you wake up early. He explained that during an all-nighter, the vibes are chaotic at 3 a.m., but become deliriously and deliciously peaceful once the sun begins to rise and it’s morning. In contrast, when you wake up at the crack of dawn, the vibes are angsty and tired. I’ll try to take it as a compliment.
(2) I recently retook my 16 personalities myers-briggs test and got a different result (ENFJ-A) than what I’ve been getting the last few years (ESFJ-A). I feel like this further proves my point that we’re all multi-faceted and ever-changing. The fact that each of the categories is also represented as a sliding spectrum that you get a percentage score on reminds me that these classifications are not binary. In my opinion, they are not even linear.
(3) lol.