Are you a Hack in Life?

Are you a "Hack" in life?  Are you being authentic to yourself or are you playing to what you think others expect from you?  Big difference there, you know......you do know that, right?  The term "Hack" is from Robert McKee in refernce to what writers do when they write what they think is marketable rather than writing from their heart.

Everyone is a "Hack" in living their life to some extent and we use every excuse imaginable to rationalize why its Okay.  It's not Okay, and I'm a Hack, I admit it.  My intent from this day forward is to not be a Hack.  So what does that look like?

I think it begins with knowing your self.  In my opinion, Self Awareness is more important to you and  what you contribute to life than anything else.  And in my experience, most of us are delusional when it comes to self awareness and being true to ourselves.  We unfortunately compromise our integrity to ourselves in order to meet somebody elses expectations.  Be it a spouse, significant other, our boss, society, church, commercials or whatever.  To some extent we bow down and go along with what is expected.

Now some people say, well I pick my battles and some things are just not worth the headache of conflict.  To that I say, why do differences need to be a headache or generate conflict?  Differences don't need to be a battle either.   Here is where perspective comes into play.  When two people have a difference of opinion, generally, one feels they are right and the other is wrong.  Do you know how many people have died because of a difference of opinion on what is right and what is wrong?  In the history of the world, do you know how many people have died because of a difference in religeous beliefs?  Millions!

There is no "right" or "wrong".  Differences in beliefs or opinions are the result of the perspective that an individual is residing in as compared to another person.  And as hstory has demonstrated, a good portion of beliefs that at one point had been deemed to be true, in reality were not factual.    So how do you know the difference?  Well, how does your opinion feel?  And this is where knowing yourself comes into play.....if you feel the need to argue your position, if you feel angst or any concern that someone feels different than you do on something, if you feel the need to convince another person that you are "Right"........then you likely are not.  The truth never feels bad!  Love never feels bad.  Love never feels forced.

Be deliberate in how you feel.  Question why you feel the way you feel in a given moment.  If your judging someone else or their actions, be curious and ask from your heart, "why am I feeling this way"?  Ask yourself, "How does this feeling serve me?"   "If you do not go within, you go without", and going within means going into your heart.