How can we be authentic while living according to others’ expectations?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Struggle which every one of us has That we want to be respectable in the eyes of society Or at least in the eyes of people who are important for us And that requires us to, as you say, keep a persona Or have an image Or do certain things which may not be what we really are So, that getting social respectability As well as having personal authenticity These two things can sometimes pull us into different directions Now, I would say that this is just the struggle of human life At one level At the same time, even among these two things I have to be like something In order to play my role in the world And this is what I actually am There is always a difference between What we feel internally And how we act publicly And this difference is not always bad If we all can’t see each other’s thoughts And that’s a blessing If we all could start seeing each other’s thoughts and feelings You think like this about me? You feel like this? Not a single relationship you would be able to sustain Because the nature of the mind is That it can just go wild But, to some extent Being cultured, being civilized, being responsible Being mature means No matter what kind of thoughts or feelings come to me I don’t express them externally So, I may be so angry I feel like punching you in the nose But, if I am cultured, I will control my anger And then afterwards, I’ll be like What was that? There is no need to have got so angry So, basically This gap between how we feel or how we are internally And how we act externally This is not necessarily a bad thing It can become bad When the two are used This gap is used to serve some devious or duplicitous purpose That means, I just try to flatter someone I don’t think anything good about that person But, I just want to get something from that person And then, I flatter them So, internally, I am just criticizing them But, externally, I am carrying favor with them So, if it is an intentional gap maintained Or increased for the sake of manipulation For the sake of getting something ulterior Then, that is bad But, sometimes this gap is what helps us to improve I don’t want to be short-tempered But, I tend to be short-tempered At least, I am not expressive physically And then, gradually, this By keeping ourselves at a particular level of discipline externally We come to the level of discipline We develop the disciplined mind internally I am a writer One of my services is writing So, there are many times when a writer doesn’t feel like writing There is a British author who got a novelized literature Somerset Maugham So, he was asked Do you write on a schedule? Or, do you write based on inspiration? Or, do you write only when you are inspired? So, he said, I write only when I am inspired And, I make sure that inspiration arrives every morning at 10 a.m. So, what that means is that We just do some things as a discipline And, if we keep doing things as a discipline Gradually, that starts becoming our habit And, if we just keep doing it regularly So, doing something externally With the desire to develop that internally I don’t feel like that internally But, I’ll do this externally That can actually help us develop that habit That’s something similar to The water wants to flow this way But, I keep flowing it this way I keep pushing it this way Then, gradually, by that, the flow gets easier More and more water flows this way Flows this way, doesn’t flow this way So, if it is for the purpose of Concealing our unhealthy reactions Which we don’t want If it is for the sake of developing some healthier habits Which we genuinely want Then, in both these cases, this gap is good And, sometimes, the social influence Can also help us to do something which is good for us That, I know this is What my friends, my relations want me to do That’s good for me But, I myself don’t feel like doing it So, then, in that case There’s some author who said that Parents make children And then, children make parents So, when you have children That forces them to mature, to grow up So, in that sense, sometimes The social pressure can also help us to Do something which is good for us But, you don’t want to do it But, what you are saying is also A very valid point that If we live in a culture which is Very externally driven Very materialistic Very show-off-ish Then, we also have to keep doing that And, we keep In doing that, we keep going Further and further away from ourselves And, then, sometimes In trying to be found As something significant in the world We end up losing ourselves You know, who am I? So, when we are in that situation We need at least some friends Who value us for who we are Independent of the glamour and the persona and the image Who are not impressed by our big achievements And, who are not going to be repelled by our failures So, the world is not going to be like that Most people are going to just look at us from a distance Oh, you’ve got this position You’ve got this degree You’ve got this car You’ve got this house People are going to judge us like that And, we can’t change the way of the world But, if we have at least a few friends Who can Who love us and care for us for who we are Then, they can keep us grounded And, then, maybe by heart-to-heart discussions with them We can also understand Okay, this is something which I need to do For my career, for my growth You know, this is going too much Maybe I don’t need to do this This will just take me too far away from myself Sometimes, when we are too close Sometimes, when we are too close to a situation We can’t see it as objectively But, somebody else who understands us They see the situation Then, they can tell us Oh, you know, yeah This is okay This is no big deal But, that That you are going too far away So, if all our friends are simply People who just see us for that image Then, it’s very easy to lose ourselves So, to keep our authenticity We have to have friends who value us for our authenticity And, even if we don’t have many Even one or two friends like that That will help us retain our authenticity also