I have been thinking a lot about authenticity.
Not the kind we talk about casually, but the kind that makes you stop and ask yourself some uncomfortable questions.
Why do I do what I do?
Do I actually like it?
Do I actually want it?
Or am I doing it because I want to fit in, be accepted, be admired, or simply because everyone else seems to be doing it?
Sometimes we do things without ever stopping to ask ourselves why.
We keep up with the Joneses.
We change the way we dress.
We change the way we talk.
We change the way we present ourselves.
We even change parts of ourselves because we think it will make people like us more.
And somewhere along the way, we can lose track of the person underneath all of that.
That was something I had to think about for myself.
I have always been adventurous and ambitious. I enjoy learning, trying new things, and being around people. I often find myself surrounded by people younger than me, and I enjoy it.
But for several years, I was trying very hard to maintain a younger version of myself.
I dyed my hair.
I plucked out the gray.
I paid attention to how I moved, how I talked, how I dressed, and how I presented myself.
There was nothing wrong with any of those things by themselves.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with dyeing your hair.
If you love changing your hair because you enjoy variety, creativity, fashion, art, or simply because you like trying something different, there is nothing inauthentic about that.
If you are a stylist, an artist, a performer, or someone whose profession involves appearance and creativity, expressing yourself through your hair can be part of your authentic self.
The question is not whether your hair is gray, black, brown, red, or any other color.
The question is:
Are you doing it because it represents you, or because you are afraid of being you?
That was the question I eventually had to ask myself.
Toward the end of last year, especially around November and December, I entered a period of reflection.
I started thinking about more than my hair, my clothes, or the things I owned.
I started thinking about the life I actually wanted.
And one question kept coming to mind:
What if Jesus comes?
What if life is shorter than I think?
What if I spend all this time trying to become an image of what I think I should be, only to realize that I never really enjoyed being myself?
That changed something in me.
I stopped dyeing my hair.
I stopped plucking the gray.
I became more comfortable dressing in ways that reflected who I am and what I believe.
Most importantly, I became more comfortable with myself.
And then I began noticing something.
People seemed to respond to me differently.
I felt more respected.
I felt that people listened more.
I felt more understood.
I felt that people believed me more readily.
And I began attracting people who seemed comfortable with the person I actually was.
Maybe everyone else did not suddenly change.
Maybe I changed what I was projecting.
There is a difference between projecting faith and projecting fake.
There is a difference between growing and performing.
There is a difference between improving yourself and constantly trying to become someone you think other people will approve of.
You can grow without pretending.
You can improve without erasing yourself.
You can change your appearance without changing your identity.
You can enjoy beautiful things without needing them to prove your worth.
You can be ambitious without pretending to be someone else.
You can be youthful in spirit without pretending you are not aging.
You can love fashion without being controlled by it.
You can dye your hair and still be authentic.
You can leave your hair gray and still be authentic.
Authenticity is not about what you look like. It is about whether your life reflects who you really are.
And then I started thinking about confidence too.
Sometimes a person has a strong personality. They are confident. They can discern situations. They make decisions. They know themselves.
People notice that.
People are attracted to confidence. They gather around it. They admire it.
But sometimes admiration can get into a person’s head.
What began as confidence can become pride.
What began as self acceptance can become arrogance.
What began as a strong personality can become a desire to control, dominate, or make other people feel small.
That is when something that started beautifully can become something harmful.
So loving yourself does not mean believing you are better than everyone else.
It means knowing who you are without needing to make someone else feel less than you.
Your authentic self deserves room to breathe.
And perhaps the greatest question is not whether everyone else likes you.
Perhaps the question is:
Do you like you?
Because if you spend your whole life trying to make everybody else like you, you may eventually wake up and realize that you never took the time to know yourself.
If God calls me home one day, I want to know that I lived.
Not a performance.
Not an image.
Not a version of me created to satisfy everyone else’s expectations.
Just me.
My authentic self.
And I think that is enough.
Author’s Notes
Authenticity does not mean refusing to grow. It does not mean refusing to change your appearance. It does not mean refusing advice or believing you are always right.
It means knowing yourself well enough to make choices that are genuinely yours.
And perhaps most importantly, it means learning to love yourself without losing humility.
Scripture for Reflection
“The Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God?”
Galatians 1:10
By Joan A. Roberts
