Being Real

Over a century ago, this American essayist wrote a profound truth about human nature: we don't want to hear the truth about ourselves. We respond to truth from others like we respond to rattlesnakes. We don't tell ourselves the truth. And our conscious mind is so 100% focused on protecting our social selves from any kind of negativity that we suppress all that we could know. But all that energy spent fending off deep self-knowledge, if it were harnessed to the wagon of our dreams? My god, we could rocket to the stars, couldn't we? So much peace of mind,just waiting to be harnessed. Such creativity - blazing fountains of creativity! - if only we could reclaim all that blighting energy.

What are we so afraid of? The scorn of the "world" when we show/admit that we aren't perfect people, in one or all of our roles (entrepreneur/career, parenting, spouse, citizen, Christian/Jew/Muslim/other - every single label that matters to us - and we all have labels that matter to us!) The disappointment of loved ones who see the real us for the first time. [They preferred to put us on a pedestal, so they didn't have to do the hard work of being real, either.

Take one small step nearly every day. Be real in one moment with one person. Eventually you'll be able to fire your social self's internal "safety net" but don't expect to do that today. For today, one person, one moment. As the Buddha said, you fill the pitcher drop by drop.