Finding Your Highest Authenticity

If you want to live a happy life, authenticity is necessary. You can tell when you are straying off from your authenticity, because you get into ruts, procrastinate and get depressed when you start to stray far from your authenticity. Today, we will go over what it means to have an authentic life. Let's begin.

What is Authenticity?

Authenticity is knowing what makes you happy and having the courage to obtain it. The challenge becomes, how do you know what makes you happy? Unless you already have it, then you can only theorize that somehow, it might make you happy.

Imagine yourself in a room filled to the brim with legos. You kind of look around, clueless on what to build. You look over to your friend there and he is building a spaceship. And then, you look to the left and all around you that everyone is building spaceships as well! Well, okay. Fuck, that must be important. So you start building a spaceship too.

Most of the challenge in finding authenticity is not only knowing what you want to build, but also deconstructing the virus culture and society has told us on what and how we should live our lives.

Everyone has these pieces of legos, and anyone can build what they want. It is totally up to you to create something that makes you happy. Authenticity is about discovering what makes you happy, and fearlessly going after it.

Who Are You?

We are not born tabula rasa meaning a blank slate. Everyone of you are born into this world with a specific purpose (authenticity). You will have preferences, individual biases and so on.

Finding your authenticity is not to mould and shape yourself into someone you're not, but to find out through experimentation, who we already are and become it. It will feel like it's your destiny.

If you are born to be a businessman, then it is your job to be one
If you are born to raise a family, then it is your job to do so
If you are born to teach and mentor others (ahem), then it is your job to do so.

You must not confuse the hierarchy with the territory. "The system" (hierarchy) and your place in it, often described with labels (rich, middle class, loser, nobody) is not authenticity. The authentic person finds his territory (authenticity) and ignores whatever label the hierarchy has tried to impose on him.

To label yourself hierarchically is fatal to authenticity. For a few good reasons:

1. You seek to elevate yourself againts others in the hierarchy, defending your position within it.
2. You evaluate your achievement and happiness based on what rank you have achieved within.
3. You behave and act differently to different members of the hierarchy.
4. You will decide what you will do based on the effect it produces for others in the hierarchy.

Living an authentic life means facing inwards. Who you are cannot be found in a hierarchy. The labels you want is found from within and everything else is a distraction.

What Do You Want To Do?

Most of us operated in the hierarchy for most of our lives. Operating in a hierarchy means that you disregard what you really want to do to seek for an external reward.

The problem with this is that we are not living an authentic life when we pander to the needs and wants of other people. You must not confuse survival with authenticity. You can be fully authentic and survive in this world, because to be authentic itself is already highly valuable.

Trust that somehow, someway, following your authenticity will lead to great rewards. Not only internally, but externally. Look at all the great characters in history, they all chased their authenticity and managed to survive whatever their interests was.

The reason why you're struggling to survive is exactly because you're not authentic enough! Ask yourself, where in your life have you lived for others out of fear?

What Is Your Territory?

When you pull up your pants and work on your authenticity, what is your home ground? For example, nobody can replicate the knowledge and wisdom I've shared in FriendlyWrenChilling. It is unique, it is one, I have no competition, it is my territory.

FriendlyWrenChilling has became my territory because I followed my authenticity.

• I followed my love to teach and educate others so that others can live a more meaningful life
• I followed my authenticity to deliver information in the written format, so that I can think through my thoughts carefully before blabbering away in the age of useless "common sense" content.
• I followed my authenticity to orient my dating knowledge in a way that can help others find and live a fulfilling relationship for the rest of their lives.

Nobody can replicate how I've taught pickup because I've taught from my authenticity. I did not pander knowledge from any other guru. Whatever I teach, I have done, and successfully might I add.

Now the question becomes, what is your territory in life? How do you know when you have found your territory? Here are the characteristics:

• A territory produces "life force" or "life energy"
• A territory sustains our well-being (financial, mental, social) without any external "carrot"
• A territory can be only claimed by one. Competition is for losers.
• A territory can only be claimed through hard work and effort
• A territory only returns her external rewards directly proportional to the effort you have put into it.

This is why it is impossible to be authentic while copying others. A territory can be only claimed by one. Remember the definition of authenticity? You need to venture out and claim a new territory, not a used one where someone else pissed on it.

Using a territory that has been pissed on not only dampens your results (externally and internally), it also makes you depressed, uninspired, passionless and produces the feelings of being trapped.

Barriers To Authenticity

If it was so easy to be authentic, you would have already done it. Why many fail to be authentic? There must be a force of the devil, and his name is Resistance. Resistance will occur when you are trying to elevate yourself from a position of lower consciousness, to a higher one.

1. Resistance is fear
2. Resistance is invisible and internal
3. Resistance is an insidious, eerie force
4. Resistance cannot be reasoned with
5. Resistance never sleeps, and will stay with you forever
6. Resistance sole purpose, is to eliminate and destroy you (authenticity)
7. Resistance only acts when you're going from bottom to up
8. Resistance is the greatest at the finish line
9. Resistance recruits naysayers, critics and Jeremiahs
10. Resistance is procrastination
11. Resistance is replacing pain with materialistic pleasure
12. Resistance is replacing pain with getting into trouble
13. Resistance is replacing pain with drama
14. Resistance is replacing pain by constantly getting yourself ill
15. Resistance is victimhood.
16. Resistance is living in someone's shadow
17. Resistance is depression
18. Resistance is avoiding turning inwards and confronting the truth
19. Resistance is to criticize
20. Resistance is self-doubt
21. Resistance is love and progress
22. Resistance is puffing smoke up your ass
23. Resistance is looking to others for validation
24. Resistance is excuses
25. Resistance is trying to rely on others for support
26. Resistance is rationalization

Some are straightforward, while some require some elaboration:

(5) Because forever you'll be improving as a person, therefore resistance will always be a force.

(8) Seeing the finish line makes you think that victory is already secured. You become lazy and incompetent, and get yourself beat. The finish line is exactly when you should push yourself the hardest.

(12) You get into trouble because it serves as a convenient way to run away from yourself. You get to focus on the trouble instead of your authenticity. By far the most dangerous one.

(14) You don't want to turn inwards and face your authenticity, constantly getting ill is a good way to elicit sympathy from others. You distract yourself through attention this way.

(16) Sometimes by shadowing under someone living their authenticity, we hope that their passion rubs off unto us. Not true, as explained in the "territories" section.

(19) When we are not living to our highest potential, we will criticize those who do. Because it reflects poorly on us, and what we can achieve. This resistance serves as avoidance. An avoidance of what we really can become. Rel authentic persons barely criticize, because they understand how tough it is to live a fully authentic life.

(21) Resistance is love because it shows us where we can improve in our lives. By overcoming resistance, we increase out capacity to love ourselves and others.

A profound definition of resistance indeed. Credit goes to the book "The War Of Art" by Steven Pressfield. He has suffered for 40 years straight before coming to this beautiful definition. Hats off to the guy.

How To Defeat The Devil

To defeat Resistance, we have to become comfortable with being miserable. Volunteer yourself to go through hell, and counterintuitively, it makes your life easier and more productive in the long run. To wage war on Resistance and reclaim our authenticity. We do this by becoming a professional.

1. A professional is patient
2. A professional shows up everyday, no matter what
3. A professional stays on the job all day
4. A professional is committed long-term
5. A professional understands that this is serious business
6. A professional accepts money for his labour.
7. A professional seeks for real-world feedback (from the market)
8. A professional has a sense of humour
9. A professional seeks order in his day-to-day life
10. A professional shuts up, and uncover mystery through direct experience
11. A professional acts in the face of fear
12. A professional accepts no excuses
13. A professional is flexible to the battlefield he faces everyday
14. A professional is prepared
15. A professional does not show off
16. A professional dedicates himself to master technique
17. A professional does not hesitate to ask for help
18. A professional distances herself emotionally from her territory (non-attachment)
19. A professional does not take failure, or success, personally
20. A professional endures in the face of adversity
21. A professional self validates
22. A professional understands his limitations
23. A professional seeks to reinvent himself
24. A professional is recognized by other professionals

Some are straightforward while some require some elaboration:

(5) A professional understand that this is his life. He only has one. He must make the most out of it. It is one thing to understand this, and another as taking this advice to heart and acting with accordance to it.

(6) A professional does not blow smoke up his ass and accepts compensation for the hard work he has put into making his territory beautiful and lush for his customers (people around him). He is not here for fun. The territory is the most important asset he has.

(7) A professional seeks real-world feedback by testing it against the market, not with friends and family.

(8) A professional takes a lighthearted attitude to cultivating his territory despite it being serious business.

(10) A professional does not cry wolf about the things he doesn't know, he shuts up and finds out for himself.

(13) Situations change day by day. A professional is adaptable to what is happening and can flexibly change to the environment

(21) A professional does not seek validation from friends, family or the market. He decides what is high-quality work, and what is not.

Become a professional today. If you take Steven Pressfield's advice to heart, this will guarantee you a lot of success in your life. I know because I unknowingly followed these principles for five years before becoming lazy. If you have been a professional at any point in your lives, you will understand how powerful this advice is.

Here is a meditation I made with AI voice, combined with some meditative music I found on YouTube. I like to use it as affirmations and listen to it every morning.

Insight And Innovation

Now that we have spent a lot of time understanding a) how to break out of social conditioning and take the first step of finding your authenticity and b) learning how an authentic person acts and behaves in his day to day life. I want to talk about the middle ground, the space between breaking free from a hierarchy and finding your territory.

What is really said here is innovation. You're searching for something new. Imagine yourself in the desert, searching for water. Your intuition is the compass on the general direction you should go before striking gold. This is the same gist with finding your highest authenticity.

Contrary to popular belief, innovation (the finding of the water) in your own life does not come in a moment of insight. Great ideas take a long time cooking, often dormant for 2 or 3 years before it will become successful or useful to you and your life.

Often it combines 20 ~ 30 insights from different and unrelated fields. This is because in your current configuration, you might not have the tools and skills necessary to actualize your authenticity. These insights are also not mutually exclusive to you.

Therefore there is another important component to innovation, which is the insights from others. Reality is simply too large and complex for us to explore everything. With your own personal exploration is important and necessary, it is important to not only consider your insights, but keep an open ear, an open mind to the insights of others.

Useless Individual Insights > Exploration > Your Deeper Insights > Combination Of Deeper Insights Againts Others > The Great Breakthrough Into Authenticity

Fear

Fear is not here to destroy you, but to guide and protect you. Talk to fear as she is your angel's guide. Underneath her irrational nature, she is trying to tell you that a trap is near. Ask her how she can be helpful, to help you avoid the landmines. The angel of fear is not an adversary, but a gentle guide showing potentially what can go wrong and how to avoid it.

To her gracefulness and wisdom, I pay my respects.

Now we understand that fear is your friend, you must look at her deeply in the eyes. You must not resist her, you must not ignore her warnings. Confront the girl chasing you down and you will quickly realize that he was just trying to give you a flower.

Only a coward can be brave

Her presence can only originate from uncertainty. The uncertain situation is then demonized and treated as separate, creating mystery. If you realize what I've just wrote, it becomes self-fueling. The only way to break this cycle is to unify the perspective and not treat it as separate. The outcome will be what it will be.

Fear only exist in dualities

Now that we understand fear, mustered the courage to face he and consulted for her guidance, we shall do what we have to do. A professional does not ignore the advisors that loves him the most, but a professional also understands that at the end of the day, she is just an advisor.

The Search For Authenticity

Circling back to the middle ground since we've now covered fear. Often the best place to start is just what is in our immediate surroundings. Your job, your hobbies and so fourth is the first step to discovering your authenticity.

You must like somewhat what you're doing right now because it didn't make you insane and quit on the spot. Trust me, if you discover something you truly hate, you won't be doing it for long. Authenticity dictates that in some fashion, you draw at least some satisfaction from your current configuration in life. What that means is that whatever the next step may be, it is right around the neighbourhood.

This is why the discussion of fears, insights and becoming a professional was so important. You might be resisting the next stage of life by avoiding your current one, counterintuitively, it is exactly your current life that will teach you the lessons and clarity needed for something more.

When you have done everything you could:

1. You became a professional.
2. You conquered your fears.
3. You facilitated your environment for insights to come.

There is just simply nothing left to do but to pateintly wait, ready your resources and strike when opportunity hits. Trust me, it will hit when you least expect it and you must be ready to capture it.

Practical Exercises To Discover Authenticity

Exercise #1:

1. On a sheet of paper draw a line to make it 50% each side
2. On one side, write "known ways to increase my happiness"
3. On another side write "theoretical ways to increase my happiness"

"Known ways" meaning that through direct experience, you know for a fact, 100% that doing that activity will make you happy. "Theoretical ways" meaning that these are things you current do not have, that you think will make you happy.

Here are some of my examples for happiness:

1. Companionship at the same level of development and maturity
2. Having a tight-knit community that are supportive of each other
3. Teaching and mentoring others, seeing the results of my efforts

Here are my aspirational ways to be happy:

1. Overcoming physical challenges
2. Testing personal limits
3. Contributing and helping mankind

Notice that I did not put "making a million dollars" as a way to be happy. If you write that, it is too shallow and you did not think it through. You must uncover what "making a million dollars" mean to you. Freedom? Freedom to do what? Can I do that without a million dollars? Some food to chew on right there.

Exercise #2 - Vision Board

1. Go on Google and create a vision board of what you want your life to look like in 10 years
2. Print it out as a piece of paper
3. Pin it on a board next to your bed
4. Roughly sketch out what you would need to create in your life
5. Take another piece of paper (blank) and write what is the major accomplishment you want to achieve this year
6. Create a way to measure your progress by labelling (Jan, Feb....)

You get the point. Actively research and contemplate about the future you want. The less experience you have, the more false positives you might get into your vision board. No worries, it all pushes you closer to your authentic self, no need to nail it perfectly.

Once you get clarity regarding your vision for the future, you need to reverse engineer what exactly you need to get done and what type of vehicle you can take to get there. Deploy the professional mindset and you'll reach the promiseland faster than you think.

The Search For Authenticity Never Ends

To live an authentic life, creativity is a requirement. Everyone is a unique individual and there are an infinite amount of preferences and ways to be happy. Create whatever you want into your life that leads to the most fulfilment and happiness.

Reality is infinite, you can only become more and more authentic as you discover more and more. This was why work ethic was stressed, because if you do not put in the work, you will never find your authenticity. You can always have deeper fulfilment, satisfaction and happiness, and that's exactly what life is about!

That's it for me. Best of luck. Please check out my other posts and practice everything holistically. Send me an email if you want a specific topic written. You can see "coaching" to see if I have room to onboard new students.

Cheers,
FriendlyWrenChilling.