by Michael on October 26th, 2010
 Fresh from the womb, life before us is almost unbounded potential. We are like an untouched block of granite awaiting the sculptor’s will. How will our lives take shape? Like the blow of a sculptor’s chisel, each day that we live chips away some potential. Each choice we make carves a path from among potential alternative futures. Across the span of our lives, living and choosing transform us from potentiality into actuality.
Yet when faced with a choice from among different alternatives, many of us get stuck. One of the ways in which we get stuck is analysis paralysis which I have discussed elsewhere. Here I want to address the difficulty of being unable to relinquish or let go of possibilities.
Continue reading Relinquishment and Choice: Say Yes to One, Let the Other One Ride
by Michael on August 3rd, 2010
Too many of us live lives which we do not want, but we feel helpless to change. For some, their hopes and passions have almost expired entangled in the thorns of drudgery or unwanted situations. Others spend their days in the stupor of a thankless job in which they have no interest except a paycheck. Still other persons live in enslavement to the debt which our materialistic culture encourages. If we asked any of these persons, “Is this the life you want?”, most would emphatically reply, “No!”… and then continue on as they were.
Continue reading A Life of Your Choosing
by Michael on July 19th, 2010
 Expressing our authenticity sometimes requires making a decision through which our living will be carried forward. Yet not all decisions are obvious. When faced with a decision, occasionally we may get stuck in analysis paralysis – unable to decide between this and that. At such times, Captain Jean Luc Picard, Captain of the starship USS Enterprise (Star Trek: The Next Generation), may point the way out of our predicament.
Continue reading Analysis Paralysis and Starship Captain Jean Luc Picard
by Michael on June 22nd, 2010
Many are the ways by which we give to others the locus (Latin: place) of evaluation. For example, sometimes as adults we live as extensions of our parents, unconsciously living the values, attitudes, and beliefs which they modeled during our upbringing. Your dad was a Republican; your mom a Catholic; and for years as an adult you have taken your place in the world as a Republican and a Catholic, although you have never sat down with yourself to personally evaluate your viewpoints.
Continue reading Assuming Responsibility for Conscious Choice and Evaluation
by Michael on June 15th, 2010
Theme of the following quotations: It is difficult to realize the spiritual state which enables the seeming non-action of the Taoist Wu-Wei practice which is suggested by living in process. Until that realization, we experience ourselves as separate selves which express authenticity through existential will, valuing, choice, and capacity to act.
Continue reading Personal Authenticity and Existential Will / Choice
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On Authenticity:To be as good as someone else is no high ideal. I am myself. — Paul Robeson (1898-1976), in “The Undiscovered Paul Robeson” by Paul Robeson Jr.
About …The Personal Authenticity Project is a blog authored by Michael Nagel MA. The Project explores the practice of personal authenticity. Your comments help to clarify the meaning, practice, and relevance of personal authenticity.
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