How Sad it Must Be When All You've Done Is Live Life as an Actor

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I think men mostly learn that material objects are what ‘success’ is all about. It takes age and or an event to provide the catalyst that helps redefine success. The catalyst jumpstarts the inner work that must be done. How sad must it be when the final curtain comes down and all you’ve done is live life as an actor? We all must strive for authenticity.

Life tells us what we ‘should’ do and what we’re ‘supposed’ to be. Until we break out of that mindset we just live life as an actor – an impostor – the false self. Brennan Manning, author of “The Ragamuffin Gospel” says:

“When I was eight, the impostor, or false self, was born as a defense against pain. The impostor within whispered, ‘Brennan, don’t ever be your real self anymore because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know.’”

Are you living authentically or are you living the life of an impostor? Are you letting the false self rule your life?

Are you doing what you want, or even close to it? What keeps you from it?

We not only need to break out of our work cubicles but the cubicle of our mind. We live small. How do we wrest control back from the Impostor and live BIG lives?

By learning to say NO.

No to the Impostor
No to the false self that tells us we aren’t good enough.
No to people who doubt us and tear us down
No to activities that we do only to please others because the false self tells us to be the Actor so they will love us.
No to anything that puts us in a position to do things for others only in the hopes they will love us.
By really taking time to think what we want to be doing and why we want to be doing it. Does it come from within or what the world or the false self says we need to be doing?

Sure, we need to put food on the table and we have responsibilities as husbands, sons fathers. But we need to take care of ourselves; if we take care of the inner man we can take care of others – but if we live lives of quiet desperation and put off ’til tomorrow what we should be or want to be doing today because of self-imposed and worldly imposed responsibilities we are sure to start living a life of resentment. And resentments are killers – they will explode in your face and harm all those around you.

Resentments are insidious and can creep in and destroy what you have.

A life of authenticity is usually void of resentments because when you are living authentically you are not so concerned with what others think of you, not caring about the outside world – you are taking care of you and yours and helping others. There’s no place for resentments because you’re doing what you want with the people you want to be doing it with and for the people you are doing it with.

Even if your authenticity ruffles other peoples feathers, that is their problem. I don’t mean being a jerk to them, I mean if you are living authentically it doesn’t mean you’re being a jerk, you’re just not living a life trying to meet other peoples expectations – ones that you couldn’t and shouldn’t have to live up to.

Peoples feathers will be ruffled.

They will be ruffled because they will be mad that you don’t recognize the director’s hat they are wearing – the control they want – that’s their problem and their inner work to do.

Are you an actor in your life? Are you playing the part of a chameleon? Shapeshifting and changing into who you think others want you to be? That’s not authentic and that’s a life that will eventually come to a head because there’s only so many parts someone can play until they get confused about who they are – they fear that their real self isn’t worthy so they codependently become who they think the other person or boss or society wants them to be. That’s another recipe for resentments to build up because when you don’t act authentically the Actor can start to mess up his part and not meet his partners/business expectations and the breeding ground for resentment rears its head once again.

We start out pure and innocent. We do what we enjoy doing because the world hasn’t tainted us yet. As we grow and fall under other’s expectations we lose sight of our authenticity and conform to what the world wants. It takes action to break free.

Break free my friends. Break free. Your life depends on it.

“For you the blind who once could see – the bell tolls for thee”

(RUSH – Losing It – Neil Elwood Peart, Gary Lee Weinrib, Alex Zivojinovich)

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The author wrote this post in response to a comment on his Take the Leap article. It was originally published on LinkedIn and is republished here with his permission.

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