Your Authentic Self Is More Valuable

There is nothing more valuable than your authentic self. Now I know just by flipping through the television, it would be hard to find anything to support that. That’s because television was never made to empower you, it was made to devour you.

In other words, It was made to use your mind against you. Its main point of attack is the things we feel the least confident about. It takes the things you are the most insecure about and uses it against you. In better terms, it uses it to their benefit. The power you hold is knowing how important and valuable your authenticity is so that you are able to build on it.

Let me help paint the picture clearly for you. Every mark a beauty presented on television becomes a standard because it doesn’t include the different beauties that exist. They present beauty as being a size, a look, followed by a reward. Because of that, many of us trade in our authentic self for a photocopy.  Why? Well because we are tricked to believe that our uniqueness fails to meet their standard.

Research shows that if we see or observe something often enough, we tend to like it more. This phenomenon is known as the mere exposure effect. When the media continually displays its version of beauty, for many of us, it chips into our authenticity. When that happens, we begin to want to be someone else. That’s only because the feeling of not being enough creeps in.

When the Mere Exposure Effect Eats Authenticity

I don’t know about you, but many times I hear a song for the first time and hate it. “That song is garbage,” I could remember saying. But after hearing that song over and over on the radio a shift starts to take place. After hearing that song in every establishment, it starts to grow on me. Although the authentic me feels it doesn’t align with me, the effect eats in.

Pretty soon, that very song becomes my anthem. Even though I am more tolerant to the song, deep down inside my initial view still stands. I still don’t think it resonates with who I am or what I like. But my level of dislike for the song diminishes. The mere exposure effect can come across as an illusion and has the ability to eat into our authenticity.

I can’t remember how many times I hear girls judge a celebrity on their physical attributes, only to see it change. “I don’t know, the more I see him the more I start to see he is not that bad after all.” I remember hearing Tupac on an interview explaining how lonely he was at a party before becoming famous. Then revealing out girls felt he was so adorable after seeing him on television.

When we submit to any external message about who we are, it’s easy to lose the most amazing thing about ourselves, everything we represent. Our authenticity, the very core to our uniqueness takes the back seat. It’s like defining a champion by a trophy rather than his or her body of work. The only remedy to that would be finding the love within.

Embracing the Person In the Mirror

The person you wake up to on a daily basis is beautiful. That’s your authentic self or the version of you that you were blessed with. It is through your existence alone that the world gains many blessings. Love and cherish that person because without that person lies a void.

I believe that God made no mistake. He chose to create each and every one of us. That’s why we all matter in our own special way. I strongly believe He took pride in all of His creations equally. So despite what we’re being fed, it’s important that we accept our truth, our authenticity, our beauty. Because at the end of all things, we are the only ones capable of defining who we are. Only we are capable of introducing ourselves to the world.

When we step into this world, let’s be mindful as to who or what we’re presenting. Are we presenting the version we were given or are we presenting our authentic self? Are we proud of our creation or do we hide behind a version we’re unable to relate to? Bottom line, be proud of you are because, believe it or not, you were proudly created.