“Be yourself – not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” – Henry David Thoreau

Several months ago I was listening to a podcast that a friend had sent to me. The episode was a conversation between two writers, just chatting about their writing processes and best practices. This was right after I had quit my job and was trying to figure out what it really meant that I wanted to “be a writer.” I had a lot of big grand plans at that point and I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing and following the right steps to get there. (Hello Enneagram 1!)

One of the topics that they discussed was the obsession with authenticity in today’s society. The commentary of these two writers was that authenticity is at odds with consistency. And when readers (or Instagram followers, or whatever) say that they want authenticity, they don’t really mean 100%. Because 100% authenticity would look like inconsistency. And today’s readers, especially on blogs and social media, want consistency from their writers or content creators.

For some reason this idea, more than anything else I heard on that podcast, took roots and has stuck in my brain for the past 6 months. I’m constantly thinking about it. Are authenticity and consistency mutually exclusive? Can you be 100% authentic and 100% consistent at the same time? Or are we less authentic because we are consistent in our writing and delivery?

This internal conversation popped up again today because, while I usually reserve my mornings for writing, I was completely disinterested in writing today and had zero ideas for this blog post. Instead I dawdled and read and then decided today would be a good idea to strip the mildewy caulk from my tub. Now…I definitely needed to get rid of that caulk and I’ve been talking about it for months. But I can’t lie to myself and pretend that doing it today had nothing to do with procrastination of writing.

So I thought to myself, “there I go not being consistent, because I’m being authentic to my desire to do anything but write.” And maybe that was true for this morning. I ignored the voice telling me I ought to be disciplined above all else and decided to go a different direction today. But if I had forced myself to sit down and write, would that have made me more “authentic.”

I submit that it would not. After some thinking, done while I was scraping away in the tub, I think I reject the idea that being consistent makes me less authentic. Or vice versa. I do think that people can use the idea of authenticity as an excuse to shirk discipline. In the same way they can use it to avoid decency and consideration towards other people. But just because I tell myself to sit down and work at a certain time every day, no matter how I feel, doesn’t mean I’m not being true to myself.

Because the true me LOVES structure, right? I think I’ve mentioned my love affair with structure and boundaries before. I don’t think it’s any less authentically me to adhere to a schedule despite my mood, because deep down what I want is to write. What I want is to be productive and successful. If I spent every morning I didn’t want to write doing neglected chores around the house…well, my house would look a lot better than it does right now, but I think in the end I would feel like I wasn’t being the true authentic me.