Earlier this week, I came across a quote and I think it was from Oscar Wilde. Be yourself because everyone else is already taken. And it struck me how important that is in today’s world, that we’re authentic.

Not because it makes us better than other people but because we’re the only ones who can be ourselves. Nobody else has the same combination of energy that we have to offer to the world. So when we’re not being authentic, when we aren’t ourselves, we deprive not just ourselves but the world of what we came here to share.

Instead of being original, innovative, sometimes silly, we copy someone else. We become a pale reminder of somebody else. Because we can’t be them, we don’t have their combination of skills and abilities, we only have our own. And if we’re not authentic, what we’re saying to people is that we don’t value who we are.

Being authentic is being willing to give the gift of ourselves to others and not think about, worry or concern ourselves with how they receive that gift.

We offer it. What they do with it is entirely up to them.