This morning I’d like to offer an idea that expands on the Daily Focus from Thursday. It was called 6,948,896,615 and based on the quote “What you think of me is none of my business.”

So let’s start with the hypothesis that perhaps it does make sense to work towards modifying our behavior to please certain people. Perhaps it’s okay to please a spouse. Perhaps we can be slightly less our true selves with our lover, to keep them happy. We really want them to be happy, right?

Oh, and family. It makes sense to accept criticism and modify our behavior a little for our loved ones, right? Maybe we should keep some of our foibles hidden from our children so they don’t model after us.

Hmmm, at work. That totally makes sense not to express our opinions and show our true selves at work because our boss might not approve.

What about the neighborhood? Well, we certainly wouldn’t want our neighbors thinking anything negative about us, so let’s conform to what they all expect. It’ll just help our lives go a little easier.

And I guess in public, too. It does make sense to keep our personality hidden when in public. We might not want to bring too much attention to ourselves… have to stay politically correct, right? We certainly wouldn’t want a total stranger judging us and thinking anything negative about us.

So what have we accomplished with this behavior pattern of just pleasing a few others a little bit? We have modified our behavior, become less of our true selves, accepted criticism, kept our foibles hidden, not expressed our opinions, conformed to others expectations, kept our personality hidden, stayed politically correct, and encouraged others to judge us.

Wow! How can our true selves exist with all that behavior going on? First, how can we possibly know anything about ourselves with all that hiding and personal modification for others? Second, how can we possibly expand into greater and greater beings if we are holding ourselves down?

And finally, who in the world would want to be around someone that inauthentic. No one will have any idea who we really truly are. They will only be getting an artificial “show” version of us. And ultimately, we will not even know for ourselves who we really are. And worse, we will not want to be around such an inauthentic being as ourself either!

Ouch. Welcome the self-loathing. So, turn it around right now, while you still can. Erase and ignore all the messages from others, because the only opinion of you that really matters is your own.