For the past few years, I’ve heard the buzz words “authentic” and “transparent” being tossed around quite a bit. Everyone is doing their best to live transparent lives, filled with authenticity. Or so it seems.
A while back, I learned that not everybody who professes to live this way appreciates it when others attempt to do the same. They may preach it on all their social media platforms, but when push comes to shove, all that goes out the window.
Be careful about sharing your authentic & transparent self with others, it might backfire on you. That’s exactly what happened to me. It’s taken me a bit to process everything that transpired. I’m still not sure what the heck went wrong.
The person I shared my genuine thoughts and feelings with, did not take kindly to me doing so.
You see, I naively thought that if I shared my true feelings, everything would be ok. This person preaches transparency. They talk about being authentic. I was truthful and honest with them, as authentic and transparent as I could be.
I told them truths about events I have firsthand knowledge of, because I care about them. Because I don’t like when others manipulate and distort the truth, to make themselves look better. I didn’t want this person to come to me five or ten years down the road, asking if I had known the truth all along, and withheld it.
Evidently truth and transparency is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. My authenticity was dealt with as if it were the plague! That’s when it hit me: it was ok for this person to be transparent with others, but not ok for others (or at least me) to be transparent with them.
Not everyone can handle the truth, no matter how many times they state otherwise. My truthfulness was met with anger and disbelief. A door was slammed in my face, figuratively speaking. I was shut out.
Proceed with caution, my friends.
