The Authenticity of Your Story
I have a bad habit- I run away from vulnerability. I know, it might not seem like a bad habit, after-all vulnerability requires strength, especially vulnerability on the internet, yet I consider it to be one. Even though I consider myself to be a strong person, the perpetual desire to embrace strength in one form is a disservice to myself.
Okay I lied, I have multiple bad habits and here’s another one- I am a perfectionist who’s also avoidant. Because i want things to be perfect, I tend to not start certain things until everything is clear in my mind’s eye. Sometimes I am an oxymoron in this regard because I have been known to take heavy risks just because I felt like it. However, in the things that matter, I mostly strive for perfection and ultimately avoidance. My desire to wait till things are perfect makes me avoid the things my soul yearns for, the projects I am deeply passionate about.
One more bad habit to tell- I don’t like to fail. I pride myself on being a person prone to excellence and for the most of my life, nature has been in my favor. I have been born with brilliance and so academics has always been a breeze for me. My favorite hobby is reading books and telling stories so even this comes naturally to me. I have the propensity to grasp concepts fairly easily and quickly assimilate them and so I find myself entering new fields with ease and minimal work. What all of these has done is make me a lazy intellectual who has zero staying power and no concept of failure. I barely ever have failed at anything neither have I ever had to work ridiculously hard at something before grasping or executing. I remember the first time I failed at something, I felt disgusted at myself. I felt like I had betrayed myself and did not deserve the brain God had blessed me with. Recently I failed again, this time at something really big and life-changing, I made a hasty decision that hasn’t worked out in my favor. I sometimes catch myself beating myself over the head mentally with a stick just for even putting myself in this situation.
I have found that these bad habits have made me hide parts of myself from me and from the world. I do not show up as my most authentic self, I do not tell my authentic story, I am afraid of being vulnerable publicly. I am ashamed of he parts of myself that have failed even in the most minuscule ways, I do not give myself grace. Most of all, because i have hidden and relegated certain parts of myself to the background, I realize that i am unable to tell my authentic story wholly and fully. This is a grave error and a great disservice to myself.
So this article is some sort of coming out of myself and meeting me without all the bias and shadows I have doused myself in all this time. I am realizing that there is authenticity in every part of my story and I will tell it without casting judgement or aspersions upon myself. Every part is whole, every part is essential, every part is a major player. There are parts of me that i love, there are parts of me that i want to work on and there are parts of me that simply should be unlearned but I will face each part head on without judgement and meet the part of me that exist in that facet and simple be who I am. As Chimmamanda once said, there is a danger of a single story because the single story create stereotypes and make one story become the only story. So as there is never only a single story of any place, so also is there not only a single air-brushed story of me. I give myself permission to sit with all the other parts I might not quite like yet, break bread with her and accept to own her story too.
