{"id":24,"date":"2009-05-21T07:10:11","date_gmt":"2009-05-21T07:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/05\/should-i-facebook-my-way-to-a-more-authentic-self.html"},"modified":"2009-05-21T07:10:11","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T07:10:11","slug":"should-i-facebook-my-way-to-a-more-authentic-self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/05\/should-i-facebook-my-way-to-a-more-authentic-self.html","title":{"rendered":"Should I Facebook My Way to a More Authentic Self?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the reasons this blog came to be was a desire to be more authentic while searching for the answers to our ethical dilemmas. While we’re far from the experts on how <\/em>to be authentic, we are on a continuous journey to figure it out. Personally, when I remove myself from my professional and social life, I have some trouble sorting out who I really am. <\/p>\n

I’m a first-generation Indian-American born and raised in rural Missouri. That, as you may expect, has caused some internal conflict. In high school for example, I had to decide if I wanted to admit to my parents that I was dating.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Most of my fellow first-generation’ers hid this basic American rite of passage; I was very tempted to do the same. Even now, though I’m extremely close to my mother, I hide things. Lies of omission, one might say. Lies that have become second nature and most definitely stand in the way of personal authenticity. <\/p>\n

Now, this is a somewhat serious introduction to my Facebook question.<\/p>\n

My good friend Vamsi approached me today with a dilemma: What should he do with his father’s request to add him as a Facebook “friend”?  While this resulted in many laughs, (the image of his father on Facebook is the equivalent to the image of  90-year-old women in saris using hot pink cell phones – very real yet a shock to the system) Vamsi also needed a few options.<\/p>\n

Create an extreme limited profile – one that would only reveal his “good” Indian self? Refuse to accept the request? Or, gasp; accept his father’s request to see him as he really was?<\/i><\/p>\n

This might seem a lighthearted question, but I think it’s also a very real question. What part of ourselves do we hide from the ones we care about? Are we shortchanging ourselves when we do this? Shortchanging others? <\/p>\n

Based on responses to a previous post of mine<\/a>, I think many people would say it’s a harmless lie to create a different persona for your parents – protecting them even.<\/p>\n

Are we ethically obliged to be our most authentic selves all<\/i> the time? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the reasons this blog came to be was a desire to be more authentic while searching for the answers to our ethical dilemmas. While we’re far from the experts on how to be authentic, we are on a continuous journey to figure it out. 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In addition to writing for a various print and online publications, such as Parenting Magazine and iVillage, she was the Website Manager for the Henry Street Settlement, a social services and arts organization serving Manhattan's Lower East Side. Most recently, she worked on the Thai-Myanmar border as a writer for the Burma Human Rights Yearbook. Her curiosity about human nature, coupled with duel streaks of idealism and Midwestern pragmatism, developed into an ongoing discussion with friends, family and strangers on ethical quandaries. When she's not asking \"Why?\" you might have trouble finding her, as her hobbies include nosing around used bookstores, exploring the world (near and far), meeting new people and occasionally twiddling her thumbs while daydreaming.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/pmangunta"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}