A Note on Inauthenticity

In recent months, I’ve found that my attention span for inauthenticity has grown short. I no longer have the emotional capacity to listen to people rant vainly about how hard their lives are and how much better things could be for them. I think that simply having the fortune to have a stable job, an income, good friends, and something(s) to be passionate about should be enough to keep anyone satisfied. But for some, it’s not. It’s easier to complain about the state of things then to accept that perhaps changing their current circumstance might take a little more effort than they’re willing to put in. If you want to travel more, maybe sacrifice drinks with the girls 5 nights a week and save that money for air fare. If you’re tired of your friends bailing on you last minute, try extending your friend circle to include more interesting and dedicated people. And if you’re tired of people not planning things with you, maybe you should take a step back and think about why they’re no longer interested. Is it because everyone in your life has suddenly decided to suck? Or is it that some action of yours has driven them from you? I’m trying, with a lot of effort, in 2016 to really examine my own behaviors and motivations for “holes” and lapses in judgment. Was I authentic in that trip summary? Did I blast off too much on social media? Am I portraying myself as too much/not enough of a badass so people will misconstrue my accomplishments? It’s a hard lens through which to analyze oneself but I think it’s a valuable checkpoint to build into the routine of existing as a social being. And it does, sadly, mean that I’m no longer willing to waste my limited energy on people who are either too vain or too unwilling to examine themselves at face value and find ways of continually bettering themselves.