Authenticity
"You are your best thing."
- Toni Morrison, (1)
Picture a lush jungle—trees tickling clouds, monkeys feasting on mangoes, butterflies dancing through air. And the sloth? Hanging there in blissful repose, hosting an entire ecosystem of moss, fungi and bugs on its furry back.
The trees don’t know they are serving as a literal roof to the myriad of life below. The monkeys don’t think about how their poop is a perfect round package of fertilizer and seeds, efficiently built for species dispersal. The butterflies are blissfully unaware that they are pollinizing with their itty-bitty feet. They are just enjoying the sweet nectar of life from their friends, the flowers.
Perfect harmony. Each creature brilliantly itself and in so doing, effortlessly serving the Collective.
Until one day, our sloth spots a butterfly and thinks, "I want to be THAT!"
"She's so pretty and colorful and can FLY!" the sloth sighs.
The tiny creatures living on his back protest: "Be YOU!"
"But I'm not pretty like the butterfly," the sloth pouts.
"But you CLIMB! You never have INSOMNIA! You're HOME to all of us! And you're the inspiration for millions of cute keychains!"
Nevertheless, comparison wins. The sloth smears berries on his fur for color (washes off in rain) and attempts to fly (spoiler: gravity exists). The harmony falters.
American monk and writer, Thomas Merton, offers his wisdom here (2): “No two beings are exactly alike, and their individuality is no imperfection”. A tree glorifies God [source/the universe] by being fully a tree. The more it embraces its tree-ness, the closer it moves to divinity.
I remembered Merton's wisdom during a recent walk with my artist friend who confessed: "Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too eclectic."
Sound familiar?
"Sometimes I wonder if I'm too __________?"
"Sometimes I wonder if I'm not __________ enough?"
We ask these questions because we're wired to fit in. Evolution taught us that belonging meant survival. But here's a liberating truth: It is GUARANTEED that someone among Earth's 8+ billion humans will think you're not _______ enough or too _______! (3)
And who is positioned to answer these questions? OTHERS.
Why contort yourself to meet impossible expectations? How about instead, we each embrace our own “tree-ness” or “sloth-ness” or whatever “-ness” makes us each authentically ourselves?
I offer a new question: "Am I being authentically me?"
The only person qualified to answer? YOU.
Feel the power?
If your answer is "no," go back to the drawing board.
If it's "yes!" – BINGO. You've just encountered a cairn on your trail. Follow it until you need to ask the question again. It will not lead you astray.
Still wondering about our friend the sloth?
He eventually gives up trying to be a butterfly. He returns to his slow-motion life, hanging upside down, hosting his microbiome of friends, and being utterly, gloriously sloth-like. The key-chains are still in production. The butterflies still dance nearby, but now he watches with appreciation rather than envy. Different gifts, different purposes—both exactly themselves.
Be you—wonderfully, imperfectly, authentically you. Our entire ecosystem is counting on it. Or as Eckart Tolle so poignantly puts it:
"You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are!" (4)
xxx,
Daniela
Founder, The Ōnda Collective
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions, 1962.
Robbins, Mel. The Let Them Theory: The Life-Changing Freedom of Just Letting People Be Who They Are. Hay House, 2024.
Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. Penguin Books, 2005.
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