The 1st Impossible Thing: The Authenticity Project (not to be confused with The Happiness Project which I've never read)

Some overly happy/overly nice people make me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. You know the type I’m talking about: the bubbly girl with the permanent smile on her face. She likes to touch people a lot and tell them how pretty they are. She also seems super-concerned about your small misfortunes. She will demonstrate this by nodding her head over-empathetically and exclaiming, “Oh no, that’s so unfortunate that you didn’t have time to get your coffee this morning. If there’s anything I can do, or if you need to talk about it, I’m here.” You never quite know if she’s serious. I’m suspicious of you, overly happy/nice girl. Have you figured out some secret to life? Are you blissfully ignorant? Or are you full of shit? If you’re not full of shit, where can I get a pair of these rose colored glasses?

Now I’m not saying that people can’t be nice or can’t be happy (I like nice people. If there weren’t nice people in the world I would never be able to cut across the 4 lanes of traffic I need to cut across to get to my exit for work. Thank you nice people for letting me cut ahead of you). But there’s a difference between being a happy person and being a “happy” person.

Am I rambling?

I’ve always been drawn to authentic people. Through my training as a psychologist, I’ve learned to rely a lot on feelings. I can feel the depression when I sit across from someone who is depressed; and I can certainly feel psychosis. This feeling exists outside of words, or rating scales, or personality assessments. It’s a subtle discomfort and intuition that’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it. Do you know people who can change the feeling of a room by simply walking into it?

Similarly I can feel when someone is living an authentic or intentional life. There’s a way they carry themselves. They often say what they mean and mean what they say. There’s an unadulterated feeling to their happiness. There’s a genuineness to their niceness. And there’s a certain way that I feel when I’m talking to these people: in the most generic word, I feel GOOD. I want to be you, authentic person.

Awhile ago, when asked about my goals for the new year, I spit out the words: mindfulness, intentionality, and authenticity. I’m not even sure what these words mean to me in my life right now (other than they seem like philosophies/tactics that might be tremendously helpful while simultaneously being “hippie” enough to make my parents uncomfortable). But I’m going to try to uncover ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of those pretty little words. Additionally, I want to document my experiences as I research, reflect, and practice living intentionally, authentically, and mindfully.

Those of you who know me know that I can be cynical, sarcastic, pessimistic, and vulgar. This is going to be hard for me. I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into, and I’m not really sure what I’m doing. But I’m pretty sure that whatever it is, it's going to be interesting.