Introduction

Who am I?

This question is enormous. As individuals we continually create, edit, morph ourselves into different versions, on different mediums, daily. How I present myself on this blog is going to be different than how I present to my friends, and each person would describe me in a slightly different light. My online presence, is a more picturesque version of myself. And when I shake someone’s hand in a professional setting vs. meeting someone at a coffee shop, my wrist strength fluctuates. Adaptability is a normal human behavior. We shift to meet the needs of those around us and is key to fitting within society, so the question “Who am I” is often contingent on where am I?, who am I with? and why am I here?

Who am I, is, actually, a sentence fragment; the longer, fuller version is “Do you know who I am?”[1] This is more existential because we all know the baseline of who we are: we are the children of BLANK and BLANK, we grew up HERE, we have THIS job title, we like THESE things and we hate THOSE. As individuals, we can make our baseline go on forever. But this question is not asking the speaker if they know who they are, the one with all the data and information, but the speaker who is asking their audience.

Therefore, all of the collected; our history, how we view ourselves, our own motives, we have too interpret and communicate to other people so they can hopefully answer the question. It forces us to constantly look outward from ourselves, which not only takes up time and brain-power but can be annoying if you are seeking for everyone you come into contact with to understand you. So we pick and choose who knows us best. We prioritize relationships and if we are in a situation where it is harder for us to present ourselves the way we see ourselves, we will opt out entirely, settling with changing into what is best for the situation.

When we our out of work, it is easy to understand why we do most things, because we feel like it. We understand are tendencies. Or, if not understand, at the very least we understand how are tendencies play out. For example, huge dinner parties where I know absolutely no one, are horrible experiences. I hate buffets because there is too much choice, you always forget something and there is a constant fear you missed out on something. Moving servers with hors d'oeuvres is worse. Aside from the food, at a party like this, everyone is expected to actively network. And in theory, this isn’t bad. However, the scale of dinner party networking overwhelms me. After a certain threshold of people, my mind switches from seeing a group as a collection of individuals to a mass that I must infiltrate. I know it will take at least forty-minutes for me to feel ready to engage. And up to an additional thirty-minutes to find people I can move past small talk with. I know eventually the experience would be fun, but does that mean I want to go to a huge dinner party alone? Never, because in this scenario, I am uncomfortable and therefore, I would rather avoid people than exert a ton of effort connecting.

In my perfect scenario, I get to meet people in a smaller sized gathering where it is natural to chat individually. A one-on-one conversation automatically allows me to open right away. In this type of setting, someone would know who I am better than at a dinner party, even if we covered the same topics. I would also feel more trusting of someone I got to know in this setting and prioritize my relationship with them more.

If I was trapped in a world where I could only have social interactions at dinner parties, at first, I would hate it. I would begrudgingly get ready and force myself out the door. But after years within this parallel universe, I would enjoy going because at heart, I enjoy connecting with people. I would perfect my presentation to those around me and feel more comfortable as time goes on. But, after six years of this world, if someone were to ask if I wanted to go back to the normal, non-dinner party society, I would say yes in a heartbeat. I would feel relieved. Granted, I would have a new skillset at dinner parties, I probably wouldn’t hate them as much, but I still wouldn’t go more often than before my six-year hideous from the real world. One-on-one conversations are my automatic. I don’t have to work on my delivery, I don’t get nervous before I begin talking, I genuinely enjoy myself so I seek those opportunities out. At dinner parties, I improved in reaching my goal of connecting with people, but it still consisted of effort to get there. I developed skills to do this task but the process is a means to an end and not the most enjoyable one.

Implications of Adaptability Culture

Human beings can adapt and change, but…should we? Currently, authenticity, is a huge word in human resources. And coming from my generation (Millennial/gen Z), we grew up with an anticipation to find something that perfectly fits our personalities. Some people can find their “place,” doing what they love and are passionate about, but how much of themselves have they changed to fit there?

In my personal life, my parents, no matter what, are people that when I am in their presence, I am myself. And it is often in the first moments I enter their house, that I realize I was faking a smile or holding in a laugh, and minutes before, I thought I was perfectly content. It made me question what I do in between those visits that I internalize a sense of happiness but when I allow myself to relax, I feel a completely different way? And, what are the implications of those differences? What does it mean that I don’t have the same amount of relaxation when I enter my own home? How is it that more people are feeling unsatisfied with their work, leading to an increase in the numbers of quarter-life and mid-life crises? Is society in a state of convincing ourselves that everything is okay because there is a misalignment subconsciously with our mind that causes us to hold our breath, without even acknowledging that we are doing it?

Authenticity Explained will go into depth about these questions and how we can take what is happening to individuals and apply what we have learned to how business run to make them more effective and productive. How can we make work a place to exhale?

[1] https://oneminuteenglish.org/en/who-am-i-or-who-i-am/