The REAL You

At a gathering of business “friends” I tend to sit back and people watch. I have this tendency to categorize and analyze and try to get under the skin through the simple observation. A man, small in stature, receding hairline, a bit overweight, and rumpled suit made his way from one clique to another like a bumblebee sucking a little nectar and moving on to the next. The fact that he hovered over all the small groups didn’t strike me as much as a common phrase I heard him say in each. It was something like: “I really hate these parties, I am such an introvert, and they drive me crazy!” And then he would go on to the next group of flowers to buzz the same interjection. As a wallflower myself, I found his introvertedness extraordinarily extroverted.

If it looks like a duck and acts like a duck the chances are: it’s a duck. It really doesn’t matter if the duck thinks it’s a dog, it’s still a duck.

The REAL you, the authentic YOU is doing what you promise and not just “being who you are.” BEING is way to nebulous to pin down and most people are pretty poor at judging who you are trying to BE. DOING, on the other hand, is easy to see and easy to judge. A wise man once said that it is “by their fruit you shall know them.” He didn’t say you can know them by what they ARE or what they are BEING.

A person of any religion can come up to you and claim “I am a person of faith.” But what if their actions are the opposite of faith? What if they are filled with worry? What if they are filled with violence and abuse? What if they lie, cheat, and steal? Where is their faith? What if it acts like a duck?

We all know those kinds of hypocritical fanatics and that is not what I want you to remember from this column. I want it to be positive because in that same BEING vs. DOING issue lays a strategy for life.

You could spend your time wondering and worrying if you are a person of faith; worrying about your eternity, wondering if you are who you should be; or, you could spend your time DOING it. You could spend your time wondering IF what you say you are is really you. OR you could just act like that all the time.

Just ACT; just DO what you should do. That is enough; you can save all the angst for your cigar and cognac discussion in a leather chair somewhere.