Homogeneity is easy. Authenticity is hard.

Which led me to take a hard look around my life. I noticed a lot of what I do is out of obligation. It’s driven by the feeling that I should do it, need to do it, ought to want to do it, and so I force myself to do it, not feeling any joy at all. It’s how a lot of people (most people?) live their lives.

Since almost everybody lives a life of joyless obligation, isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing too?

That way I have a place in the group. I can fit in while we complain around the water cooler, commiserating about the wrongs that have been done to us, the prejudices we’ve suffered, the injustice, the anger, the unfairness of it all.

If I’m not suffering, I don’t fit in.

That’s homogeneity. On a human level, it’s easy. It’s comfortable. It’s being a member of the herd.

On a spiritual level, it’s the hardest thing a soul will ever do.

Anything we do that brings us joy is living our life’s purpose. 

We were not put here to suffer. We were not incarnated into this human form to toil miserably, living small lives of fearful desperation, until we finally, mercifully, slip off into the dark oblivion of eternity.

We are here in this life as spiritual beings having a human experience. Divine–yet mortal–manifestations of God.

It is our obligation to buck the system, to upset the status quo.

To live in joy. 
To honor our purpose. 
To be happy.

A belief in suffering robs us of our joy, our creativity, our spontaneity, and our passion.

It’s this commitment to suffering that causes us to suffer. Nothing else.

Conversely, a commitment to joy brings us joy.

The downside of living an authentic, purposeful life?
We may no longer fit in around the water cooler.
We may no longer have much in common with our friends.
Because if homogeneity is easy, authenticity is hard.

Authenticity is what it takes to live with purpose.

To feel joy.
To be creative.
To be happy.

And it’s the easiest thing a soul will ever do.