Authenticity is the highest vibration. So when we talk about selling out, we’re really talking about the moment we trade that vibration of TRUTH for something else.
But what is a sellout, exactly? On my live stream, someone in chat put it perfectly: a sellout is someone who betrays their own values for a leg up. Not just someone who makes money. Not just someone who has a job. Someone who gives up who they are to get ahead.
Everyone has a price?
The same person in chat added that probably everyone would sell out for the right price. My first reaction was: not true. I wouldn’t.
But I also have it good right now. If I were disempowered or disenfranchised and felt powerless, I might take a bad deal. And it would always be a bad deal, because you’re compromising yourself.
This is the kind of selling out the system hopes for and creates. Take ICE agents. I don’t think most of them took the job because they hate immigrants. Many took it because they were struggling and needed the paycheck. When people are desperate enough, they start compromising their values.
Every compromise moves the compass
Here’s what I’ve learned: as soon as you start compromising your values, you lose your inner compass. You no longer have the integrity inside yourself to know what’s right and wrong. And losing your values makes them harder to hold the next time.
The research backs this up. In a 2015 paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology, David Welsh, Lisa Ordóñez, and colleagues ran four studies on how unethical behavior unfolds over time. When the chances to cheat started small and grew gradually, people cheated at double the rate of people who faced a big temptation all at once. The reason was moral disengagement: we justify small slips easily, and each justification makes the next, bigger one easier. The researchers found that small indiscretions can snowball into major violations if left unchecked.
The flip side is that holding your values gets easier the more consistently you do it. The same research found that a more vigilant, protective mindset kept people from sliding down the slope. The stronger you maintain your values, the better off you’ll be.
The man who slept when he wanted
Some people really are true to themselves. I met a man in Mount Shasta named Hoot, who named himself after an owl.
When Hoot was young, he had insomnia, and all he wanted to do was sleep. His parents made him get up for school. On weekends, they didn’t want him forming bad habits, so they made him get up then too. So he made a promise to himself: as soon as he turned 18 and moved out, his only goal in life would be to sleep whenever he wanted and wake up whenever he wanted.
And that’s exactly what he did. He planned to go to college, but they told him he’d have to take early morning classes. So he didn’t go.
Today he’s an incredible artist. He doesn’t use a computer; he makes his work on a copy machine. And his pieces carry messages like: nonviolence is for something, violence is against something. He’s a Unicultist without even knowing it.
Think about how rare Hoot is. So much of our ability to succeed and belong depends on alarms, coffee, sleeping pills, and schedules we never chose. Most people believe they have to give up something that basic in order to make it. Hoot didn’t.
We’re all co-opted sometimes
Most of us aren’t built to be authentic through and through. Someone in chat pointed out that college students have to sell out a little, or they wouldn’t be employable. Another said they watched creative writers take marketing and technical writing jobs just to get paid. Every morning, plenty of us drink a cup of coffee even though we want to stay in bed.
I’m not exempt. I still have a regular job. I compromised myself, but only as much as was necessary to get into a position where I have it really good. My job is fun, I’m good at it, and I do what I love, even if it’s not yet my full life’s purpose.
We’re all co-opted here and there. The question isn’t whether you’ve ever compromised. It’s whether you’ve held the line on the things that matter to you. On the values I care about most, I’ve never sold out. My success has been slower because of it, but now it can’t be taken away from me.
You have to live with yourself
In whatever ways matter to you, your ethics are important, because you have to live with yourself. That relationship with yourself is the source of your entire feeling state, and your feeling state is the source of your entire quality of life.
The research agrees. In a 2020 meta-analysis of 75 studies covering more than 36,000 people, psychologist Anna Sutton found that authenticity was consistently linked to greater well-being and to deeper engagement in life and work. That held regardless of age, gender, or whether people were students, employees, or community members.
So be the kind of person you’re happy to be. Be the kind of person you’re proud to be. And trust that life will reward you for it.
When you’re authentic, you’re creating an authentic reality. That’s the highest vibration there is.
Sources
- Welsh, Ordóñez, Snyder & Christian (2015), The slippery slope: How small ethical transgressions pave the way for larger future transgressions, Journal of Applied Psychology
- Sutton (2020), Living the good life: A meta-analysis of authenticity, well-being and engagement, Personality and Individual Differences
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