Authenticity is the door that opens if and when a person realizes who she or he is and what matters. When that door is open, life is simpler. "Tell the truth; then there is less to remember." (Mark Twain)

Authenticity in a hyper, consumer world is no small task. It is unlikely Henry David Thoreau could have peeled himself back to his core living at Walden Pond in Massachusetts today. Lots of people we don't know--and some we do--spend enormous amounts of time and money to define each of us in ways of their choosing. We are constantly bombarded by messages from businesses, religious groups, politicians, and peers. The combined effort adds up to the pressure under which we live. We walk in the pouring rain at all times, and the drops are instructions and admonitions about who we should be or become.

People do fight back. Some travel a distance along the road to personal discovery. Self-help books, for example, are one of the largest segments of the total book market, and this has been true for decades. Find yourself seminars in major cities attract thousands throughout the year, at fancy prices.

Looking outside to others for an answer is one approach to finding one's self; another is to look inside. Carl Jung, the towering Swiss psychiatrist, developed a system for thinking about who we are, our individual, basic nature. Jung is the psychiatrist who uncovered our unconscious and the messages of dreams, among other common knowledge today. He also developed four dimensions for understanding a person. The dimensions describe how a given individual "works," his or her temperament or character.

In common language, here are the four Jung-type questions a person can use for a self-inspection.

What is your source of energy?
Are you an introvert or an extravert? People who tend to get their energy from other people are extraverts. They thrive in peopled settings. Introverts, on the other hand, tend to get their energy from within. If an introvert and an extravert go to a party together, by ten p.m. the extravert is having a wonderful time, and by eleven he or she is stoked. Meanwhile, by ten, the introvert is drained, and by eleven, ready to head for home. Where did the introvert's energy go? The extraverts in the crowd sucked it up!

Each of us has a preferred place, a comfort zone, somewhere along the introvert/extravertdimension.

What is your source of information?
In the day-to-day world of life, certain people tend to pick up data and signals via what they hear, see, touch, taste, and smell. Such a person mainly uses her or his five senses. Jung termed such individuals "sensing" people. They absorb information from outside themselves. Effective sales people, politicians, and entertainers, for example, tend to be sensing people; they read their audience(s).

Other people tend to get their information from a "sixth sense;" they are what is often called intuitive. They are disposed to leap over step-by-step fact gathering and thinking and they sometimes come up with blazing insights, "Aha!s," in a seemingly effortless fashion.

Each of us has a preferred place, a comfort zone, somewhere along the sensing/intuitive dimension.

How do you process information?
On one end of this dimension are people who mainly use their heads, i.e., brains, to process information. They are thinkers. On the other end are people who use their hearts; they feel their way through information. Engineers and scientists, for example, are typically rational; they are strongly biased toward thinking. Artists, by contrast, lean on their feelings en route to conclusions.

A lady I know was always complaining about her dentist. She often said he did not do a good job, was behind the times, etc. When asked (by a thinker) why she didn't switch to a new dentist, her reply was that her existing one was "such a nice man." She dealt with the information she had with her heart.

Each of us has a preferred place, a comfort zone, somewhere along the thinking/feeling dimension.

What is your approach to decision making?
Some people really like to make things happen; others prefer to let things happen. The first group loves closure, getting on with the show; the second, going with the flow. Closers are typically uneasy before a decision is made; the go-with-the-flow group is often hit with doubts and second thoughts after a decision is made.

People who lean toward taking action and closure are deciders, for lack of a fancier term. They are comfortable with decisions and then they like to move on. Senior managers in organizations of all types tend to be deciders.

At the other end of this spectrum are those who prefer to wait and see what develops; they like to keep their options open as long as possible. They are deferers, again for lack of a better word.

Each of us has a preferred place, a comfort zone, somewhere along the decider/deferer dimension.

Four Dimensions of Temperament
These four dimensions are universal. They have been tested and found useful in thousands of research projects and practical applications. For example, they are the foundation for the Meyers-Briggs tests than are familiar to many people who have had such tests in school or in career counseling.

There are four important points about these dimensions and where a given individual happens to fall along them.

1. Each individual is a combination of these dimensions, and there is no right or best or perfect spot to be on any of the dimensions. We are who we are, and we each do fall somewhere on each dimension at any point in time.
2. The four are measures of preference, not capability. A person may prefer thinking through information, but this does not preclude his or her using his or her heart. And vice versa.
3. Preferences typically change over time. Whatever the original source of preferences--parents, up-bringing, schooling, etc.--an individual is capable of changing, consciously or otherwise. An extravert can learn to listen within and find comfort in quiet time alone. An intuitive person can boost his or her awareness (through the five senses) of the world around.
4. One prime characteristic of an authentic person is that she or he has the will and self knowledge to move up and down any dimension in an effort to accommodate the subject or circumstances at hand. An authentic person can be at home in either extravert or introvert situations and derive energy from both. She or he can close on decisions at times, and linger in others. She or he can use both heart and head to sift through information, or, most likely, both.

Authenticity breeds self-confidence. One knows one's self well enough to use one's whole repertoire of potential skills dealing with the few subjects that truly matter (another topic for another time). The individual is more of a total person who has an internal guidance system pointing the way through the maze. His or her life becomes simpler.

Authenticity also enables a person to stand and be counted when the occasion arises, to be up-front about positions taken and decisions made, rather than evasive and multi-faced, a wind vane twisting in the endless flow of outside opinions.

Joseph Campbell, a popular philosopher and a wonderful teacher, said in a TV interview with Bill Moyers: "The theme of the Search for the Holy Grail is the bringing of life into what is known as 'the wasteland.' The wasteland is the world of people living inauthentic lives, doing what they are supposed to do.'"


Copyright © 2009 Steven C. Brandt

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