Authenticity promotes well-being in life and at work | Hacker News Reader

Authenticity promotes well-being in life and at work

forbes.com

63 pointshhs45 comments

This reminds me of the old saying “honesty is the key to a successful relationship. If you can fake that you have made it”. At least in work you have to make way too many trade offs in order to survive so you can’t be really authentic. Some people are lucky that they fit in perfectly but I don’t think that’s true for most people.

It’s also much easier to be authentic if you are driven by an urge to succeed as measured by the business world or if you have a desire to fit in wherever you are. What can you do if you are wired to be driven by things that have no commercial value or don’t fit with the mainstream?

You are really mixing up authenticity, success, and fitting in. Each is its own thing.

Authenticity is being comfortable in your own skin and being the same person no matter who is around you. Fitting in is being what you think others what you to be. Success is a subjective measure of society.

> It’s also much easier to be authentic if you are driven by an urge to succeed as measured by the business world or if you have a desire to fit in wherever you are

No, this can be why midlife or other identity crisis happens. You wake up after 15-20 years of this and don't know who you are or where you are going in life.

How do you square being authentic with a world where more and more of the benefits go the people who succeed in the business world and the need for financial stability? What are your options if you are not cut out for that world and have no other talents that are financially useful? One way is to be born indecently wealthy obviously but if you haven’t accomplished that then for most of us the only way is to put on a mask every day and play the game.

> How do you square being authentic...

What do you value for your own well-being? That's where you will find the answer.

Ops point that you quoted makes sense. Here’s another way to think about this -

Your personal motivation might be financial security or something else, but you might be in a position where you are perceived or measured based on some metric that you personally don’t care about any more than you have to insofar as it’s helps you in securing your job, pay, safe environment, or whatever else. Not everyone has the luxury of easily changing teams or moving across the country for their actual work passion and people are all at different points of their lives. My motivations are probably different than yours.

These concepts should not be dismissed as being orthogonal by some textbook definition. I’m not sure what being pedantic adds to the conversation.

> Your personal motivation...

I'm sharing my personal experience. Authenticity doesn't come from any motivation. It is not transactional. It is more about being vulnerable, and less about being right.

> These concepts should not be dismissed as being orthogonal by some textbook definition. I’m not sure what being pedantic adds to the conversation.

Touche. Thanks for your feedback.

Yeah, if I was my real self I would probably get punched. I can fake it most of the time but if I get run down and my real self comes out then everybody hates me.

Is the run-down version of you the real you? How are you when you are well rested and having a generally pleasant day?

What the 'real you' means can be left up to debate.

Imo trying to live up to our own expectations of ourselves isn't faking it, but we don't always manage to live up to them either.

In that case you should put effort into changing, rather than hiding, your self.

What exactly do you fake at work? I fake nothing in my life, including work, and don't really understand this.

Maybe this is a cultural thing?

> This amounted to 51 studies, 75 independent participant samples, and over 36,500 participant observations. The researchers then tallied the correlations between these measures.

Meta analysis can be interesting if done well, but a lot of the time it simply reinforces the publication bias / bottom drawer effect, and people who create meta studies are unlikely to closely examine the quality of each individual study.

I intuitively agree with the conclusion but the study itself looks like GIGO

This is all fine and well for people whose authentic self is aligned to whatever is socially preferable in their particular work environment. An all-inclusive work environment is not possible in today's highly polarised society.

E.g. an individual expressing their authentic right-wing views at a place like Google with their 'bring your whole self to work' mantra clearly wouldn't work out well.

The real title should be: finding a workplace where you can be authentic promotes well-being in life.

My own thoughts exactly. Not being right-wing, but that this idea is something everyone agrees on and think is a great idea and why don't we just do it. Which sounds great, until managers find out they're liable and run some risks they don't necessarily agree with or understand enough. So it becomes mandated to "bring your own self to work", as long as it raises productivity metrics only and liability is siloed in the individual or other departments.

Where the culture is great already, this would only be natural and already in-grained, not merely tolerated. Other places, most places, just another tool for higher-stake power-games.

I wish I could explain this to people, as a major reason for being homeless in SF. I have many right-wing views and am as authentic as possible, which leads to severe ostracization in most environments. Kicked out of all friend groups post-Trump. I get along with the police, actually thought it’d be funny to apply to a PD last night. Obviously saying that I am ostracized for having right wing views and attitudes is triggering to 90% of people here. I stay because I am non-soy vegan/jain, and also attend a lot of meetups and lay low. I do get kicked out and picked on for frivolous reasons/litmus tested. I am a non-Churchian Christian, really at a loss for where to find leads into a coding job. Before Trump my career was great, now I am lucky to work 8 hours a week of odd jobs. We really need to work on accepting authenticity.

I've met people who feel treated like you before. They were usually rather obnoxious in their display of their political opinions. I'm not saying you are, but you might want to stick to living by your views instead of letting everyone know what they are at the earliest opportunity. Just be more diplomatic about it, both sides will benefit without anyone changing their views.

yes, that's a subtle but important point. be rather than tell. being is self-directed, while telling is externally-directed. that is, it's trying to exert power on others, and most folks don't like that.

with that said, there is an asymmetry in viewpoints that gets lost in the tribalism of ideologies: while both can be short-sighted/misguided (in different ways), many right-wing/conservative positions are about preserving the status of the already powerful, while left-wing/liberal positions are about empowering the disempowered. robin hood, not the sheriff of nottingham, is the hero we generally root for.

You’re probably right about the OP, who has managed somehow to alienate his way into homelessness, a rather extreme case.

On the other hand, selection bias. For every “out and proud” right-winger in the valley getting lynched by an angry mob, there’s hundreds more conservatives, libertarians and even centrists keeping their heads down and trying to avoid political conversations because they know that being their “authentic selves” in such a situation would be a career-limiting move.

Personally I can respect people who are open about their viewpoints, so in that way I appreciate authenticity. But when I strongly disagree with their viewpoints I still may not want to hang out with them. I wouldn't want to have Adolf Hitler in my book club, despite him being unapologetically authentic. I expect the people who rejected you feel the same (hopefully to a lesser degree than if you were literally Hitler).

Authenticity is orthogonal to expression. Authenticity is about owning your values and understanding your self.

Authenticity is not sharing your political opinions with the world. Sharing opinions is about controlling your image.

You can hold political views of any stripe and be well accepted by people whose opinions clash with yours.

Authenticity is not broadcasting your opinions about the world, it's not compromising on your values in order to fit in. Political views are imperfectly derived from values; they're derivative and less important and should be freely modified as you acquire experience, new perspectives, and more information.

Values and authenticity, in contrast, stem from internal discourse and exploration.

“Bringing your whole self to work” is and always has been a privilege extended to those whose whole selves are socially accepted. It’s good that being LGBT is socially accepted at places like Google. But pretending that “bringing your whole self to work” can be a universal rule for everyone is either dishonest or requires the hubris to believe that marginalization no longer exists in any form.

The mask of “professionalism” sucks, but someone will always have to wear it, and perhaps it’s more equitable if it’s worn by all of us and not just some of us.

I always felt like this is exactly what happened with Brendan Eich. There was an expectation that he would be authentic about his reasons for supporting Prop 8 in 2008, and his authentic position was that he be allowed privacy regarding his personal views on the matter.

This tension was not resolvable.

> Authenticity is defined by psychologists as the act of expressing one’s true self,

Can HN give me some concrete or specific examples of expressing one's true self? I must admit the first line from the article has already stumped me.

It requires first knowing what your “self” is or who you are.

Then you need the safety and space to express that “self” in what you do.

For me, who I am means:

* needs I have * boundaries in my relationships * values I hold

Needs are things that can be satiated immediately, through activity (or inactivity)

Boundaries are implicit or explicit (explicit is better for me) edge cases that give me triggers to challenge aspects of other people behaviours that might prevent me satiating my needs or living my values.

Values are concepts that I want to exhibit through my actions in life. Ways I want to live or aspects of my environment I would like to realise or emphasise.

My 2c

Have you ever had to pretend to be enthusiastic about project decisions you didn't agree with? Have you ever had to mask what you would like to say to prevent conflict with a problematic manager or co-worker? Have you ever had to force yourself to be polite, cheerful, and friendly to a customer who really didn't deserve the courtesy?

Other examples:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/04/26/custom...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_mask_syndrome

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/02/24/theres-such-a-thing-as-...

When you put it that way, authenticity sounds like a terrible idea. But I don’t think authenticity needs to be defined in opposition to professionalism.

One of the best examples I can think of is when a really great technical individual contributor switches to a management career path because in many organizations that is the clearest path for career growth and higher compensation, even when the individual is not really interested in or motivated by managerial responsibilities such as developing others or listening to their problems. This pattern repeats: seeking individual gain by doing something that really is not authenticate to your values and interests, with negative consequences for everyone.

Values have multiple facets. Maybe you prefer to be technical but also want to make more money? In most companies you will have to compromise one of the two.

Start by making a habit of just telling the truth, as gently as possible.

Does not bringing up details about you that others might find reprehensible still count as being authentic?

How can you be authentic if others will find you rotten?

All the world's a stage n all the men n women in it merely actors? Usually i m polite. Most of the time i am weird. Because i choose to work n hang out with ppl who tolerate my weirdness. Sometimes i dial it back because cost benefit analysis. I mean. Ppl need psychiatric help because their weirdness affect their everyday life, right? Dial it back here n there. And life goes on a bit more pleasantly. Not 16yo anymore. No need to be angry all the time? As teh ancient chinese say. 1 kind of rice feeds 100 kinds of ppl.

This seems like it's encouraging Google's "bring your whole self to work" policy, which is wonderful, unless your job is in a toxic environment, or otherwise draining. I dialed back my amount of self brought to work at my previous job, and found that despite my constant dissociation, I was able to function better both at home and in the office.

I'm not recommending that strategy, but it can make a difference for someone in a position they're working on leaving.

The key phrase is "working on leaving" which is arguably the most authentic act in such a situation, and is likely to promote well-being in the long run.

An inauthentic act would be to dissociate but have no plans to leave. Sadly that describes most of my co-workers at the moment, and sure enough they're just riding the miserable train to retirement for the most part. Not a route I'd recommend.

It's miserable, but if it works and there's other reasons to stay, like job security, it's worth it for some people.

I think it also depends on how far you've got to go. Anyone can do 18mths, but doing it for 20 years is sad.

This seems like a different topic than the blog post but an important one none the less. I had coworkers who would deliver 100% of themself at work but only be rewarded/acknowledged for 50-70% of their contributions and they were getting worn down by it. I suggested they dial back how much they apply to somewhat more than expected and save the rest of themselves for themselves. If they’re happy with this arrangement then enjoy the new balance, if they want to do more and be rewarded for more then leave for another company.

> bring your whole self to work

is a quote from mike robbins. not google. although i don't know if he works there or for them.

but since we are on the topic. i have always wondered about people who work in teams whose sole purpose is using all the tricks in the book to track other people online and accurately target them with ads and whatsnot. i wonder if these people are being "authentic" in the sense this article is portraying. are these people truly sad or something?

i may be speaking for myself here but if i was ever in such position, i would be doing it for the money or technology, not for well-being.

didn't one of the google execs say they warn their guests about their digital assistants in their houses?

>i have always wondered about people who work in teams whose sole purpose is using all the tricks in the book to track other people online and accurately target them with ads and whatsnot. i wonder if these people are being "authentic" in the sense this article is portraying. are these people truly sad or something?

Their authentic self, much like the capitalists many of them will decry, is likely one of holding the value that hording resources and status (via money) comes above all else. I'm sure they likely deflect from this by instead vocally focusing on more visible traits and its experience/influence in society.

>didn't one of the google execs say they warn their guests about their digital assistants in their houses?

Yes - https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50048144

https://beta.trimread.com/articles/551

My authentic self typically doesn't want to wake up early and go to work. My authentic self also doesn't want to be homeless.

https://outline.com/qacsGU

You can certainly not bring your authentic self to HN. Right dang?

On the contrary, I wish more people would. But sometimes people take authentic self to mean something like purely individual expression, without regard for the commons or the needs of others. I don't think that can be right.

Most times when commenters here break the site guidelines, it doesn't feel like they're expressing their authentic self at all, but rather that they're avoiding doing that by attacking someone or something. If they would simply share their actual experience, it would be fine. But that's not so easy for most of us.

Most oppositional behaviors are just inversions of conformist behaviors—the same thing, with one bit flipped. Whatever authentic means, that can't be it.

Hmmm, authenticity...

You mean sort of like the uh, direct opposite of what Hacker News promotes in its comments sections?

What feels authentic to you about making accounts called cuntAIDS, analHooker, and analCunt to post this comment three times? Serious question.

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