Anybody who knows me knows that I have such a deep love and attraction to music. My young childhood dream was to becoming a WNBA superstar, but at the age of 10 I would realize my much stronger desire to share music with the world. My dad bribed me to sing karaoke at a friend’s wedding, and I haven’t stopped since. I watched Camp Rock over and over again, because I fell in love with the story of the kids finding their voice and becoming the artists they wanted to be.
Since I spent a good chunk of growing up in my room listening to music, I would pick up on little details about the individual voices I would hear. This is something that fascinated me and I loved it. I would hear live performances of the songs I enjoyed, because I love watching the performances. It wasn’t hard for my little ear to notice the difference between the live version and the studio recorded version of my favorite songs. I would wonder why the same song sang by the same artist could sound so different recorded and live.
Now that I have grown into my own creative bubble, the same problem can still frustrates me. Personally, if I were to record my song someday, I would want it to sound like me, not some “perfected” version of my God-given voice. I would want listeners to hear me, not the “ideal” me.
I have seen the movement on social media talking about the photo-shopped images we all see on the covers of magazines. I never personally felt affected by this because I always knew that the girl I was seeing was not real life, and I never felt like that was a definition of beauty that I needed to attain. Applying that same comparison attitude towards the music I listened to, I finally understood that feeling. I knew was never going to be able to make my voice sound like a studio-perfected version. And that made me feel like my music would never be anything, since my natural voice will never sound perfected
This topic leads into the issue we all face – comparison. My last post was all on comparison, and the promised part two is here! Authenticity is becoming a lost art in our world today. Everywhere you look, you see people posing for that “perfect” Instagram post, or the seemingly never ending phrase, “she’s so fake.”. When did we get so focused on the image we portray to others? I believe it is natural human tendency to always want to show others our best, which means we need to work extra hard to counteract that! Shouldn’t it be our goal to be our best for ourselves, and not others? I hate blaming the society that my generation has grown up in, but frankly, this has been caused by the technology presence in our lives from a young age. And this presence is only going to grow. Mummun De Choudhury and his team from Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington have presented a study linking social media presence to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. This has become a growing trend, especially in teens, who have the highest social media usage out of all age groups.
Snapchat for example, has opened the door for us to always see what others are doing all day long, at any moment. This brings on the thoughts of “Why wasn’t I invited to this event” or “Wow, their life is everything I want.” We must keep in mind that pictures and videos that someone chooses to share does not define their entire life.
Just like we must fight for the things we believe in, we must fight the overwhelming lack of authenticity by living our lives authentically!
To show that I’m not the only one who feels we need an uproar of true authenticity in our world, I sent out a mass message asking friends if they thought authenticity was present or lacking in the world around them and their opinion on this topic. They helped me further show this topic from more than just one person. This is universal!
Camiela Bacha said, “Its more than just being unique. You have to put it into practice. It’s making a choice everyday. Making the choice to be real, to be completely honest.”
Julia Howey states, “Authenticity is the freedom to live! Its only when we all strive to be authentic that the world becomes genuinely good.”
Claire Goenner agrees by saying authenticity is “owning your victories and your mistakes.”
Teresa Olsen strongly put, “Our society has rapidly transformed into a place where we can’t disagree and still respect each other. Authenticity is necessary and the way to real progress, yet we fear it when it produces conflict.”
Lauren Jameson – “Our world is full of fake posts about how great life is. Authenticity is admiring that life sucks sometimes, but we get through it with each other.”
Kayleigh Franco – “People become so focused on pleasing others that they lose who they really are, and become a product of others.”
Mary Farmer’s wise words – “Authenticity means not being afraid of the really GOOD or really BAD things that you have done or were a part of. It is allowing God to work through you and not pretending you’re a cookie cutter of what the world believes you should be. It isn’t all about being open about the scars. It’s about accepting the pure beauty that you are, and not allowing the things that hurt you or others to stop you from seeing that in yourself.”
We are not alone. There are people surrounding us striving for this same goal, to change the world with our authentic beautiful selves! Be yourself to the fullest extent, and you will set the world on fire.
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