Letting Go, Being Real

It is not an easy thing to be real. Authentic is a better word. Being authentic means being willing to just be, let go the restrictions of what others think about you and your thoughts, but actually daring to explore on your own and come to conclusions. Daring means willingness to share your thoughts and conclusions with others. See what they think about them. What criticisms do they have? Are you OK fielding those criticisms without losing faith that what you think and how you arrived at conclusions have validity on their own?

Are you able to act on the criticism and adjust your conclusions accordingly? Did some of the comments prove helpful to you and actually clarify your own thinking? Did they have a point you had missed? Great! You can take criticism and survive it; even benefit from it.

Benefiting from it means you are using thoughts from others and weaving them into your thought process; this action enhances the conclusions, the outcomes of the process. Fresh ideas often spring from this interaction. It is from such processes that teamwork forms among office mates and friends working on a common project.

And this leads to Collaboration. 

Now, collaboration is a special action of workers and thinkers. Their focus is on something common. Thinking out loud on the common project/task, raises questions, terms, phrases, all in need of definition. Group thinking begins to expand the subject matter more and more and finally some tasks are identified that, when worked on by separate sub teams, actually lead to some interesting findings.

Teamwork and collaboration. Cooperation, too. Three words that contain much promise for people of goodwill who trust one another (wait! that’s the definition of goodwill!). I started this piece talking about being real, being authentic. Getting to that point takes courage and freedom. It means you can let go of fear of judgment, fear of being wrong, fear of losing face, and just being you. You, in all of your richness and promise. And flaws.

If entire teams have members like you, just imagine what can be accomplished by you all! The possibilities take my breath away.

But it really starts with individual courage to just be yourself. Freed from restrictions of what others may think, you are now able to think freely and associate bits and pieces of the real world in relationships unimagined before. That's where invention comes from. Seeing the world differently however managed. Using old things differently for different results, or creating new things completely. All of this creation comes from serious thinking and personal courage.

Want to say something to the world community? Then write it down, edit it, and post it on a blog. The worst thing will be if it is entirely ignored. If you earn reactions, you know it was read. And if the reactions are reasonable and accurate criticisms, alter your message; make it better; then re-post it. Show the world you can change and adapt as well as think on your own.

It takes courage to do this. Your courage. I know because I have worked through this process on my own for several years now. I think I’m doing OK. No monsters have sprung from under the bed in the middle of the night and sucked air from my lungs yet!

Of course there is still time for them to creep out of their hidey ho’s but I doubt it very much. See? I still carry doubts with me. But I’m getting better. You will too. Try it!

August 29, 2017