Being Your Authentic Self
The world is changing and so are the people in it. At some point, life used to consist of such simplicity. We have moved into an era were simplicity is a thing of the past….the good old days……but seriously, they were!
As the world has become faster, more intricate, trying to keep up with your internal but many a time we are focused on the external. Have you ever considered if your alter ego has a central role in your life? At what point have we stopped being authentic and at what point will we crack to realize the dissension from our true nature and quite possibly our true self, let alone calling?
At one point in my life of finding myself, on this journey called life, I lived in an extremely interesting part of the world and noticed that a lot of people who lived there mainly as Expats, referred to Dubai as a fictitious place. In the sense that nothing is or was “real.” I agree and disagree with that sentiment, but I would also consider applying that statement to the rest of the world. Why? Simply, because people’s egos, particularly those that do not have certain material possessions which seems to be a bone of contention in the human race.
At times, some people can negatively comment on those who do have, as per Tyler Perry’s TV production ‘The Have and the Have Nots.’ Whereby, the keeping up with the Jones’ is such a thing that debt in the Middle East is not a major discussion point, but believe me it’s absolutely REAL! Discussions tend to surround on how one is acquiring this car, this handbag, going to this event. The superficiality of it all can be exhausting as your authenticity has clearly left the building. However, in the same breadth, the lack of realness in a transient place such as this is can conveniently birth personalities that come across as inauthentic.
You can reinvent yourself according to your surroundings. Dubai, in particular exposed me to a range of personality types that did not align to my values and beliefs and many a time, trying to build friendships, I found myself questioning “do they like me for me, or like me for the material things or place I worked?”
The UAE has 7 Emirates for context and relatedness you may refer to them as States or Regions. Dubai is, in my opinion, the most popular Emirate and then Abu Dhabi in terms of tourism and possibly work. In the sense of fakeness of it all, I recall many expats used Dubai to reinvent themselves. It was like living inside of Instagram in Realtime, therefore, everything had to be done on 10 most of the time. The questions that came to mind was “are they representing their true self or is this their alter ego?”
I went with the latter, due to too many interactions with people discussing how much they earned and the cars they drive. What is now super fascinating is people from the UK who visit Dubai, behave as if they have achieved some type of status by going there, and this is where the egoic self really demonstrates a reality that embodies, in my opinion a level of low self esteem and in some instances, fakeness.
Visiting Dubai, does not change anything in your life, just like visiting the supermarket. It’s all a choice that you have made, but a deeper question is who made that choice for you? Social Media, your insecurity of FOMO, friends, low self esteem, lack of confidence? The reason I ask is simply because no one who shows off on Social Media are doing anything different but promoting a version of themselves that appears to be, many a time, disconnected to true human connection and emotion and many individuals who tend to spend time illustrating a lifestyle of proposed high end realities, are rarely living a joyful, authentic life and post after post we see the same rhethori and everyone seems to all end up doing the EXACT SAME THING! People that go to Dubai take the same images of the Sand dunes, Dubai Mall Waterfalls, Souk etc. So, how is this being yourself and who’s lens are you truly looking through?
When you live outside of their fullness of self, leads to a greater misconception in that many inauthentic people believe that they are fooling their audience. This is why being authentic and grounded offers you clarity on what you see and feel. I feel that it is sad to see because it appears in many forms such as people who dress in clothes they have no business purchasing (because they cannot afford them), bullies at work who may have struggled in their home country or industry and have managed to acquire a “high ranking” position in their place of work, and people living a lifestyle just to “fit in”. What makes the inauthenticity so interesting is that people believe their own lies about themselves.
The key question here is how long can we live from the peripheral parts? Because at some point the real you gets tired of living inauthentically!
I have come to realise that people tend to live outside of who they really are, and if you or I dig deeper, I can guarantee that they, many a time, do not know who they are, themselves.
One of my good friends highlighted a quote, “Be Yourself, Because Everybody Else is taken!” As a world of beautiful, talented and innovative people, a lot of us need to WAKE UP!
I hope that I have made a difference to your day and your paradigms on your journey to being the real authentic YOU!
Wishing you, success, love and light!!
DMC.
