What Oprah Knows for Sure About Authenticity

You can run away from yourself for a very long time. You can be married to the wrong person for decades and pretend it's fine. You can fake it doing work you only half care about. You can hide behind accoutrements, square footage, and cars. Big-screen TVs and fancy vacations. But you will never get away with being a phony.

Eventually life reveals itself and shows you a mirror to help you see your own truth.

And if you've been faking it, ignoring your thoughts and feelings (what I call your emotional GPS), the wake-up call can be harsh.

The call often comes in the form of what, on the surface, looks like loss: loss of a job, a relationship, your looks, or whatever external thing you use to find value in yourself.

When you excavate deeper, examining more closely every situation that has fallen apart, you will find truth gone awry.

I know for sure that we each contribute to the whole of what it means to be a human on earth. The fullness of our humanity can be expressed only when we are true to ourselves. Your real job on earth is to become more of who you really are. To live to the highest degree what is pure, what is honest, what is natural, what feels like the real you.

Anything less is a faked life.

To be authentic is the highest form of praise. You're fulfilling your mission and purpose on earth when you honor the real you.

Your whole life becomes a prayer of thanksgiving.