Quit faking perfect and be yourself

So many people cover-up things within themselves. They smile when they really need to frown. They "laugh" nervously when they are uneasy and uncomfortable. They try to make it "all right" so everything can be "perfect" and "fine." We do this to be accepted. We do this because people guilt us into acting perfect. We fake perfect so others don't have to experience any unpleasant realities, because their life is just as fake as ours. If some people came into contact with anything real they would be shocked out of their minds. This phony life builds-up inside of you until one day you erupt like a volcano and you don't know why. But, some people don't explode, they implode. They fake perfect until they disappear forever and become someone else's version of who they "should" be. Either way it's a total loss of life. You are lost because you have not been being honest with yourself, and your life is largely unexamined and unexerted. You have to do some thinking and know who you are, and then you have to resist compromising your truth for the comfort of others. Don't intentionally be rude, but be you. Some people will see you as an asshole because they don't understand honesty, integrity and honoring oneself. Witnessing honesty frightens some people because they haven't known authenticity in their own life. But really, your abrasion is the rub they may need to open themselves or at least cause them them think. In a world of sleepwalkers an awakened mind is a teacher and a catalyst for new awakenings, whether they want to be or not. A moment of truth is very powerful. Instead of smiling to be polite, just frown. Instead of laughing when you are nervous or uncomfortable, just speak your truth. Instead of acting like everything is all right, proclaim it isn't alright, and talk about your feelings! Honor your truth. Honor yourself. Be real. If you can honor yourself and be real about your discomfort and pain, then your happiness will be just as real. If you can't be real and firm with others about who you are, you will be doomed to a phony, plastic bullshit existence, where you only live for others. When you are real you can move through what ails you instead of being stuck there forever in some sort of "Pleasantville" hell.

There is nothing you will ever do that is more important than being honest about who you really are. As crazy as it may seem, most of us are not who we think we are; we are someone else's ideas. Two words: cultural conditioning. Our identities are tremendously warped and distorted by yesterday's trauma and tomorrow's expectations. The struggle to excavate your true, authentic self from beneath the mountain of conditioning and ridiculous expectation is the epic struggle of your lifetime. Most people are buried alive in a cultural and familial avalanche from the moment they are born, and are never seen or heard from again. Your number one mission in life is to be who you were intended to be. Nothing is more miserable than living a muted existence of inauthenticity. All pain in life comes from suppressing your true identity. You must begin to understand that this is your life; no one else's! This is your precious, wonderful, unique and brief moment in life! Please, I beg you, to at least be honest with yourself and be who you are. If you can't be who you really are then what is life but an unbearable lie? Refuse to be coerced. Resist the suppressive pressure to contract, and instead expand in defiance. Resist and declare that you are alive; you are you, and you are unmasterable and beautifully broken in a fixed world.

Almost all real spirituality is about connecting with your truth. Who you are is an expression of your version of a Higher Power. You insult every version in existence of a Higher Power when you live falsely, timidly and out of accord with your awesomely unique truth. There are different levels of consciousness and awareness. Every discipline of religion and psychology has their own version of this stratification. There are varying levels of spirituality, emotional maturity and intellectuality. These levels effectively isolate us from one-another. The higher realms can see and visit the lower realms, but the lower realms have difficulty seeing or visiting the higher realms. Ascension through all levels of consciousness and awareness can only happen when you live life as you, and not how others think you should live. How could self-realization possibly be anything other than being yourself? Taking advice is fine; by all means, be open-minded, but not to the point of allowing others to obliterate your uniqueness. Evolving and bettering yourself is wonderful, but not if the set of standards and values you adopt smothers you into oblivion in the process. Your uniqueness is the greatest gift you will ever receive in life. Your uniqueness is the master key that unlocks the hidden treasures of your lifetime. Who you are is indispensable to yourself and others. You are worthless to others if you don't know your own self and self-worth. Claw your way out of your slumber. Look deeply within yourself; that is what they mean when they talk about "finding yourself" and "knowing yourself." And once you find yourself — exert yourself unapologetically and unconditionally. Expand into the fullness of you. Dare to simply own the space of your body. Own your space! This is your life! Be you. There is one clear urgency in your life that you must never neglect, and that is — you must be yourself.