The Meaning of Life – Authenticity

Decorative Country Living

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As most of you know, I’m a believer in what I call “Authentic Living.”

Picture it! Sicily! 1965! Just kidding… I’ve learned this through experience, so I thought I’d share a bit more of my journey today. By my loose definition, authentic living is living a life that works within your community, don’t fight the flow. If you live among communists be communist this is your life experience. If you live among racists, be racist. This is your lot in this life. All that marching and picketing changes nothing. Sure you can have dreams, you may work hard, and you can have determination, but at its foundation is authenticity to both who we are and what is appropriate for us at any given point in this current life. It is like a girdle, it forces the fat to the proper place and molds it to be more pleasing to the eye. It is living well within our means not only financially, but emotionally, physically, time-wise, and mentally.  

Country Homes & Interiors 2005 What do you gain by resisting? You only prolong the inevitable. You are here to learn. You are here to experience. You must stay the course. Live this experience so you may put it behind you finally. Can you love a bigot? Can you love and accept a mentally deranged family who loves you? Can you forgive a family who has pledged your soul to Satan? Can you go on to sing and dance when you know your husband and now your daughter plan on your death so they can be together? Can you remain authentic in the face of treachery? Should you become unauthentic to survive? Can you except the flawed skin you are in? Can you accept that youth is gone and refrain from botox? Can you stop buying sexual favors on the street from strangers? Can you stop stalking your mother in law like a serial killer? Will you admit that your first lover was your own mother and you loved it? Now that she is dead, will you admit that you cheated on your husbands with your own sick mother? Authentic means living your absolute truth live and out loud – but should you?

House Beautiful You have scrubbed and painted the outside. You have perfumed and powered every inch of space on the exteriors. No one in “the neighborhood” needs to know what the decor is your interiors. What did you think adulthood would be like? Oh yes, I know different. You needed adulthood to be different because childhood was horrible. School was a nightmare. The other kids were a source of anxiety and emotional games. The teachers did not intervene nor acknowledge anything outside of their lesson plans. You were on your own. Now that you are an adult you realize, you are still on your own. Everything society tells you to do takes something FROM you and gives it to others. You are compensated a pittance which is far better than the past where everything was taken from you and you were given nothing plus abuse. Now, the wealthy pay for this treatment and call it a kink.

House Beautiful What does it all mean? There is no meaning. If you happen to wake up then live. If you happen to not wake up then someone else can put the coffee on.

House Beautiful It’s okay to just sit and breathe in and out sometimes. It is okay not to do anything at all but see the birds flying overhead without a thought in your head. It’s okay.

Ideal Home via House to Home Circumstances in this life are like the ocean, ever present, ever changing. What is the purpose? The purpose is to exist and live the experience day to day, moment to moment. Reboot yourself then take the time to use all your senses of smell, touch, see, taste and hear. Feel the silkiness of flower petals, see the spider in her web in the corner, taste the chemicals in your coffee, smell the marijuana second hand smoke from your neighbor next door without judgment, without care, without feeling anything but alive authentically._________________________I came into this life fighting and crying. I have learned to relax and swim along with the current until it weakens then swim for the distant shore to safety, that’s authenticity for me.

Coletha Albert is a writer from Houston, Texas who enjoys time to travel and be inspired. This paper is an assignment for a Harvard Rhetoric course she is currently taking. First Draft. Coletha’s dream job? Ghost Writer