Authenticity Scale
Answering the authenticity scale test suggests that I am living inauthentically to please others; consequently, it makes me become very unaware of my true self. If the results are accurate, it suggests that my discontentment in life is caused by the restraints of social expectations I impose on myself. In addition, it indicates that I am more self-alienated and controlled by social expectations, and less authentic than the average person. In terms of how it influences my personal life, the results tell me that I am hindering self-development and will eventually end up unhappy due to my lack of freedom.
In relation to that, I realized the importance of living an authentic life after reading Yacobi’s paper on the limitations of authenticity. Although authenticity can be individualistic when it is done for the purpose of fulfillment, it can still be an altruistic goal if it intends to also improve your interactions with others.
According to Sartre (1905-80), the importance of self-realization—in other words, living authentically—is that it compels one to be in complete control of their life. Despite thinking that restrictions by nature exist (which he referred to as facticity), he still believes that there are no intrinsic traits; thus, we ought to take full responsibility for our actions as being the masters of our fate. For this reason, he argues that our anxiety stems from being held responsible for making mistakes (since free will entails responsibility).
On the other hand, Albert Camus (1913-60) valued authenticity because of its ties with our life’s meaning. If the world does not have an objective purpose, we humans live meaningless lives. Why should we? It is absurd. In response, we create purpose by living (while being aware of life’s meaninglessness) and rebelling against the absurdity (i.e., being alive without a purpose). To live meaningful lives, it must be intentional; therefore, one must use their freedom to rebel against the absurd—by doing so, one lives authentically.
Even though authenticity is an immeasurable human construct, it is still important to consider because of its real effects on our experiences, self-fulfillment, happiness, and our interactions and relationships with others. Nonetheless, absolute authenticity is impossible because of the limitations of our knowledge.
What we currently know is an interpretation of reality based on our conscious experience. This is exacerbated by the fact that the media we consume provides representations of reality, which can obscure the line between reality and its portrayal: our knowledge of a particular information can sometimes be an interpretation of an interpretation of reality. In addition, the limits of language also inhibits our mind’s ability to understand or explain our true self since the language we use is the medium through which our thoughts articulate its knowledge.
Besides this, there are social factors that also hinders our capacity to attain absolute authenticity. Our plurality of identities that is composed of the multiple roles we take in society—social, national, political, religious, and cultural—makes it very difficult to discover our true self. This is because taking these roles requires some amount of conformity to social expectations and norms. So by conforming to these standards, we hide some of our vulnerabilities; as a result, we hinder some of our faculty for the development of authenticity.
To reiterate, we can never achieve complete authenticity; however, we still need to develop our authentic selves because doing so can lead to living meaningful, fulfilling, and free lives. Through the exposure to interpersonal and intrapersonal criticisms, reflection, and self-examination, we can continuously develop our understanding of our true selves despite never reaching perfect knowledge. However, the important thing is not really the understanding of the authentic self, but rather, the awareness of our evolution of the self. This is because being aware of our growth can allow us to predict our future decisions and control it, and determine whether we are on the right path—it can prevent the repetition of mistakes and lead us to a more accurate direction to the path of authenticity (but never reaching the destination to true authenticity).