AUTHENTICITY
By Gene Levine - www.genelevine.com
What are we, if we must lie to others? What have we gained if this gain has come about at the expense of someone else? Don't we compromise our human dignity when we compromise the dignity of someone else? What kind of management asks someone to lie to someone else for the sake of expediency? Why accept doing something you do not believe in? When was the last time you wanted to be lied to?
Do you believe what George Washington said in his farewell address? "I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy."
Do you think your employees" perception of you would agree with the self-image you're trying to portray?
I feel that a person's self image is his or her most important possession. Self-image plays a major role in how we live our lives. What we think about on the inside, shows on the outside. The sum of how we view ourselves plus how honest we are to ourselves plus how we fill our wants and needs equals our happiness.
For example, take this small episode with its big moral:
In the life of Amelia Earhart, the once noted aviatrix and personality, nothing, in my opinion, is as poignant as the marriage contract she wrote on her wedding day, February 7, 1931. The entire scenario leading up to this contract is too long to explain here, but suffice it to say that their wedding was planned after a long pursuit by her fiancée, G.P. Putnam, a renowned public relations man. Finally, Miss Earhart acquiesced to his pleadings. But, at the time of their wedding she still wasn't sure Putnam was the right man for her. So, as the story goes, she gave him this contract for his signature just before they walked down the aisle. (The English used by Miss Earhart was characteristic of its time.)
"There are some things to be writ before we get married. Things we have talked over before – most of them.
"You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feelings that I shatter thereby chances in work which mean so much to me. I feel the move just now as foolish as anything I could do. I know there may be compensations, but have no heart to look ahead.
"In our life together I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. If we can be honest, I think the differences which may arise may be avoided.
"Please let us not interfere with each other's work or play, nor lessee private joys or disagreements. In this connection I may have to keep some place where I can go and be by myself now and then, for I cannot endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage.
"I must extract a cruel promise; and that is that you will let me go in a year if we find no happiness together.
"I will try to do my best in every way."
Positively provocative, isn't it, considering when it was written? Incidentally, Putnam signed it, and their marriage succeeded up to the time of her death in 1937.
Here was a person being totally open and honest with her fiancée as to what she thought it would take to satisfy her wants and needs. What she wanted above all was to have Putnam understand, confirm and be committed to her requirements, her wants, her needs, her space. Space she needed to grow in. Space to pursue what was important to her. And, if in the final analysis, their agreement would prove too confining, or prove unworkable, she wanted "out." I think this contract is a masterpiece in its simplicity and depth, and it is a portrait of authenticity.
Is it being selfish to wish to do that which makes you happy? Or is it selfish when someone else denies you that right? Are we to deny our own happiness by compromising our own authenticity? Are we to give up being trustworthy, responsive, credible and genuine, both as an individual and as a member of society? Won't compromising what we believe in cause us to lose those very beliefs? If we cannot be honest to ourselves, then to whom can we be honest? Do we so much fear being rejected by others, that we welcome our own misery?
Sometimes we lie to protect ourselves. For example, we want to save our job so we lie to our boss. Lies beget lies. Listen to Thomas Jefferson on this subject of lies in his letter to Peter Carr (August 19, 1785) when he wrote ". . .
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