Are you authentically living who you really are?

Atomic Betty writes,

…I wanted to write that book so badly. It was about the freedom we enjoy in this country about our right to pursue happiness. It was mostly a political book. The problem aside from being a big success phony, I realized pretty much all of politics was made up of phonies. Holy God, politics is like the mother ship of phonies. I learned 99.9% of all politicians don’t give a rat’s ass about your happiness. Then the lines became very blurred on who the good guys were. And I abandoned my book. (But there was this great chapter about the Foo Fighters I really wish you could have read. It was a thing of beauty.)

I started several other books since then. I didn’t finish any of them. It never felt “right”. But I’ve come to realize that writing isn’t always about when you feel like it. After reading Stephen King’s book On Writing, I felt my ass had sufficiently been kicked by the almighty, admittedly creepy, astonishingly talented, King of the modern publishing world. He wrote, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” As a matter of fact, reading about his journey, especially his struggle, was like a light shining through a cathedral’s stained glass window that before I had only stared at in the dark. Finally, I got it. It was crystal clear and it was beautiful.

…I just realized today, however, this is the book I was meant to write.

It’s about how real happiness in life is found when we are authentically living who we truly are. Much of our lives are concerned with putting on airs. We have to become someone specific at our jobs. We try to be someone else with our children. We struggle to be who we truly are in our relationships. All because we want that love, acceptance, and maybe a raise.

Read more here.

hat tip Glenn Reynolds