Unmistakeable Me?

So, I'm on a journey.  Where am I going?  Well, my compass is pointed towards "Exhilarating Clarity".  I have that statement written on my Vision Board which I picked up from a line in a book somewhere.

I am currently doing a 12 week Body for Life challenge, taking yoga classes 2 evenings a week and seeing a counselor.  I am smiling as I type.  Can you guess what season of life I'm in?  So this is what 50 looks and feels like for me!

I am reading all sorts of stuff that I have never read before.  My latest read was an ebook called The Art of Being Unmistakable by Srivas Rao. It's a short read but packed with some punch.  For example,

Honesty and Imperfection

In a world where everybody has a voice, the only "personal brand" that will stand out is one that is honest, imperfect, vulnerable, and rough around the edges. When you polish anything too Much, it loses the thing that makes it shine from within.  Then we cannot trust it anymore.

I really question if I am honest with myself and others.  Probably not.  I know I have lots of internal struggle.  I know what I wish I had the courage to say but then my "polite and diplomatic" persona cuts right in front of the line like a rude person at an amusement park. " Excuse me!  I've been waiting in this damn line for nearly on hour so that I could yell like a mad woman on this 2 minute roller coaster! " I really disapprove of rude people and polite alter egos.  I truly want to be authentic and stop the bull but I don't know how.  Look, I taught an Etiquette course for children! Emily Posts book on Etiquette was part of my inheritance.  What would people think of me?  Perhaps that is the wrong question?  Does being authentic mean being rude? Actually, I think I recall something else I read by Solomon.

Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Proverbs 27:5

So it's good to hide love and better to openly rebuke. Hm mm....and what do you suppose is best? 

My answer.  Be real. Be vulnerable. Be willing to risk offending.  It's not the end of the world to offend someone. So what if you fall out of some one's "good graces."  If it's easy to get in good with someone it's just as easy to get out.  Typically, I have found that the perfect people have nothing substantial to offer except some platitudes and party lines.  No thank you.  I'd rather sit next to a stranger on a bus and pour out my soul. 

Oh God, deliver me from the trap of treating people as commodities as something to be used and minimized.  I want to see, really see people.  To hear people, to listen. To shut up and let them bleed it out.  Sure it's messy. But it's okay because we are more alike than different.  We are born to adversity; we all have that in common.