Quotes About Authenticity

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

A real writer (or artist or entrepreneur) has something to give. She has lived enough and suffered enough and thought deeply enough about her experience to be able to process it into something that is of value to others, even if only as entertainment. A fake writer (or artist or entrepreneur) is just trying to draw attention to himself. The word "fake" may be too unkind. Let's say "young" or "evolving.

It's okay to be an introvert, to seek out the quiet corners at a cocktail party, to care about quality, to have your mood be affected by your surroundings.

What we get when we turn pro is we find our power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and live out.

The hack is like the politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders. It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from. I

We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. If we were born to paint, it's our job to

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. If we were born to paint, it's our job to become a painter. If

Remember, as artists we don't know diddly. We're winging it every day. For us to try to second-guess our Muse the way a hack second-guesses his audience is condescension to heaven. It's blasphemy and sacrilege. Instead let's ask ourselves like that new mother: What do I feel growing inside me? Let me bring that forth, if I can, for its own sake and not for what it can do for me or how it can advance my standing.

Nuestro trabajo en esta vida no es convertirnos en ese ideal que imaginamos ser, sino encontrar la persona que ya somos y convertirnos en ella.

The part we create from can't be touched by anything our parents did, or society did. That part is unsullied, uncorrupted; soundproof, waterproof, and bulletproof. In fact, the more troubles we've got, the better and richer that part becomes.

On realising that he is not a born warrior, as the rest of his troop are): A cherished self-conception must be given up, and one feels diminished by it. This is mistaken, however. A person discovers that he has been made stronger by the jettisoning of this sham and disadvantageous bag-gage. In fact, he has become more "himself," by aligning his self-concept more closely with fact.

Suspending self-judgment doesn't just mean blowing off the "You suck" voice in our heads. It also means liberating ourselves from conventional expectations—from what we think our work "ought" to be or "should" look like.

Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional, crazy heart. If your notion violates every precept I've set forth in these pages, tell me to go to hell. Do what that voice says.

Don't cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you've got.

If we show our poem to our friend and our friend says, It's wonderful, I love it, that's not real-world feedback, that's our friend being nice to us. Nothing is as empowering as real- world validation, even if it's for failure.

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.   Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.

Instead let's ask ourselves like that new mother: What do I feel growing inside me? Let me bring that forth, if I can, for its own sake and not for what it can do for me or how it can advance my standing.

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own. Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.

I'm trying. I'm giving it my all. The thought of tailoring my output to any market or to please any imagined audience never enters my mind. This is for me. I'm writing to save my own life.

I have electricity in my home, but if I don't plug into it, I don't see the light. I have Jesus in my heart, but if I don't plug into Him daily, I won't see His light either, even though it is there. I have to connect with Him. Talk to Him. Worship Him. Spend time with Him. Bask in His radiance like bathing in the sun. Become so familiar with His illumination of my soul that I immediately recognize any counterfeit.

Free-will is not just the ability to choose between things; it is the ability to choose what you are.

Maintaining our shit takes a lot of work. To awaken is to release this effort and face your shit.

Mitt Romney stepped forward and called out Trump for what he clearly was—"a phony, a fraud.