Questioning Authenticity...and why I am okay without it...

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players
-William Shakespeare

If you have read this blog for the last week or two, you will notice that I am having a bit of an identity crisis. I have been reading around the "blogosphere" about how to "find myself" and how to live authentically in order to get through this stage. And I have been sucked into all the steps and methods one takes to truly find out how to do just that... Wouldn't life be so much easier if I wasn't fighting to live within someone else's rules for my life? I would easily breeze through my life because I was being real. I would dress totally cool because that is who I really am. I would be confident and happy...I just needed to figure out who I really am.

I journaled...I brain stormed...I prayed and meditated...waiting for my authentic self to reveal itself...

And nothing happened. The same girl that didn't want to work out was still coming up with excuses to not go out and run (I was so sure that my authentic self would be a skinny running girl!) The same girl that is not quite sure how to balance being a little bit of a rebel with my fashion choices (and having a million excuses for not going for it) with my thinking I should be a proper ironed khacki-pants and sweater set military wife. The same girl that wants to be more "crunchy" but can't give up her Frappuccinos and mall-lovin'. Still there...and no authentic self revealing itself...sigh...

Then I remembered something my mom used to tell me:

"Fake it until you make it."

But that isn't very authentic! Maybe not...but I realized that if I waited until I truly loved doing housework or going for a jog...well, it just wouldn't get done. Sure, my authentic self does not feel blessed cleaning. My authentic self would much rather read a book than anything else. But my overly-authentic butt needs to work out. So, I put on the "costume" of running and do it anyway. Sometimes I don't feel like cleaning the floors, but I am going to ACT like I am someone who does and do it anyway. Sometimes I let myself fall into the trap of not working on my business because "it isn't real, anyway..." but I get out of my pajamas and act like it is paying the bills. I am faking it until I make it, baby...

So, my challenge to myself is to accept that fact that I don't really know who I am. And I am going to be learn to be okay with that. And, to be honest, do I really want to confine myself to always being defined by labels- even if they are ones that I feel to be "authentic" now? What if I choose to eat meat in the future? What if I want to start wearing (and ironing) khacki pants and sweater sets? I recognize that who I am, what I like and what I do has changed so much through the last 30 years, it would be silly for me to define who I am now. I want to be free to be change who I am. And I definitly want to be free to challenge myself to be better than I actually am.