Authentic Living

How hard do you suppose it might be for someone to suddenly adopt an existential life style of living authentically? The idea of freely choosing one’s own purpose, deciding what is meaningful, living one’s life on one’s own terms with no thought of what others may think nor any thought given as to how this choice of living will affect them, must surely be a costly venture. Can it be done without tearing apart relationships? Should that really even be a consideration?

To be what many would consider a non-conformist, to have autonomy over one’s own life, is to transcend socialization, to resist the allure and not be seduced by what is essentially the easy ways of a conformist. But at what cost?

Should it give one pause to consider, before embarking on a life of free choices, to live by your own standards, to do what you will, when you will it, and how you will it to be done, what the consequences will be on those we love?

Aren’t such people, who choose to live so freely, reviled rather than revered?

The alternative is the decision not to live in such a free manner as to cause disharmony amongst family and friends. Compromise. That surely must be the catchphrase, after all, one must “go along in order to get along.”

But, when it is our turn to die, and die we will, for it is inevitable that we all must die, no one will tap us on the shoulder and say, “not you, not yet, I will take your place.” That reality rather places the responsibility of our life squarely on our own shoulders.

Doesn’t it?