Quotes About Authenticity

When all of this music sounds like you know what you want to say, then it will have been of all worth, ever. You will be something complete unto yourself, present and unique.

I know there are people, if I go into a market or a city for the first time, there are people that are there that just want to see the famous person, or the guy from 'Dumb and Dumber' or whatever movie they liked. And that's fine, it gets them in the door, but then it's my job to give them something different.

Stop thinking your way through life, always trying to work it out before living it. Life is to be lived, not analyzed to death. Feel

Let life kick you off your pedestal time and time again, until you lose all interest in being on pedestals.

Stop trying to heal yourself, fix yourself, even awaken yourself. Let go of letting go. Stop trying to fast-forward the movie of your life, chasing futures that never seem to arrive. Instead, bow deeply to yourself as you actually are. Your pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your deepest longing, your fearful thoughts...are not mistakes, and they aren't asking to be healing. They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly, in the loving arms of present awareness.

And how easy this mechanism is to see in others! Can we see it in ourselves? That is the question. Who are your scapegoats? What do you reject in others that you secretly reject in yourself? Weakness? Failure? Fear? Homosexuality? Violence? What thoughts and feelings do you not admit in yourself, in order to hold up to the world an image of who you are?

The word "fronting" was important to Rob. A coward who acted tough was fronting. A nerd who acted dumb was fronting. A rich kid who acted poor was fronting. Rob found the instinct very offensive, and in college he saw it all around.

There is very little that is natural left in people when they stray from the cities. Day hiking in Gore-Tex with a bag of trail mix and a cell phone in a fanny pack and a bottle of iced chai tea clipped to your belt isn't actually natural, it's tourism, or worse, voyeurism.

Be yourself and people will like you.

don't expect me to be all dear diary this and dear diary that

Character is more important than rank. Loyalty is more important than wealth. And what the people who truly know you think, is more important than your status in the eyes of strangers.

Why do so many people start their messages with, "It's me"? Of course it is you. We all know that. But who the hell ARE you?

Feeling - what authentic human fun!

It's like, everything really is two ways, the way we all pretend it is and the way it really is

I'm quite sure more people fake an awful lot of everyday human contact. I just fake all of it." --Dexter

Like a beautiful brightly colored flower without fragrance Is the well-spoken word without action. Like a beautiful brightly colored flower full of fragrance Is the well-spoken word and the deed that matches the word. DHAMMAPADA 51-52

I'm a liar, but this is the truth. I

I became a songwriter not when I composed that perfect couplet, or experienced the right amount of pain. It's when I realized that whatever I wrote, even if it meant gutting myself in front of strangers, letting all those raw emotions come flooding out, making a fool of myself with my own words, was exactly what I always wanted to do with my life.

learning how to disappear is the best way I've found to make my true self visible to myself and others.

Don't we want more than anything to make something that reflects who we are and how we feel honestly enough that someone else might feel seen or acknowledged, and less alone?

showing up with a reliably open heart and a will to share whatever spirit you can muster is what resonates and transcends technical perfection.

I told him point-blank so there would be no mistake: This person he wanted to know better did not exist; I was who I seemed to be from the outside. That would never change.

This was what most people wanted: to be close to but not part of. They didn't want the fearful unknown of a 'pristine wilderness.' They didn't want a soulless artificial life, either.

pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic, even if only from a distance.