There’s a quiet pressure most of us carry, often without realizing it. The pressure to soften our opinions. To dilute our personality. To round off our edges so we’re easier to accept, easier to like, easier to keep around. It shows up in meetings when you don’t say what you really think. In friendships where you laugh along even when something feels off. In life choices where you follow the applause instead of your gut.
And slowly, without any dramatic moment, you start trading authenticity for approval.
The problem is, approval is a terrible currency. It’s unstable. It depends on moods, contexts, power dynamics, and who happens to be in the room. What earns you praise in one season can get you criticized in the next. When you build your identity around being liked, you’re constantly adjusting yourself to fit other people’s expectations. You become reactive instead of grounded.
Authenticity, on the other hand, is expensive upfront but priceless over time.
Being real costs you something. It might cost you popularity. It might cost you invitations, validation, or being everyone’s favorite. Some people will misunderstand you. Others will decide you’re “too much,” “too opinionated,” or “not their vibe.” And that can sting, especially if you’re someone who genuinely wants harmony and connection.
But here’s the part we don’t say out loud enough: not everyone is supposed to like you.
When someone dislikes you for being authentic, they’re doing you a favor. They’re saving you years of performing, pretending, and slowly resenting yourself for shrinking to stay palatable. The people who only like the edited version of you don’t actually like you. They like the mask. And maintaining a mask is exhausting.
There’s also a subtle arrogance in trying to be universally liked. It assumes you should be compatible with everyone, when in reality, humans are meant to be different. Different values. Different rhythms. Different boundaries. Friction isn’t failure; it’s feedback. It tells you where alignment exists and where it doesn’t.
Think about the people you admire most. The ones who feel grounded, calm, and unmistakably themselves. They’re not trying to win every room. They’re not constantly explaining or justifying who they are. They’ve made peace with being misunderstood by some and deeply respected by a few. That peace didn’t come from approval. It came from clarity.
And clarity changes everything.
When you stop chasing approval, your decisions get cleaner. You say yes with intention and no without guilt. Your work improves because it’s no longer filtered through fear. Your relationships deepen because the ones that remain are built on honesty, not performance. You might have fewer people around you, but the connections are real, and real always outweighs many.
This doesn’t mean being rude, dismissive, or reckless with your words. Authenticity isn’t about being unkind. It’s about being aligned. You can be respectful and still firm. You can be compassionate without abandoning yourself. You can evolve without betraying who you are at your core.
The irony is that when you stop trying to be liked, you often become more magnetic. Not to everyone, but to the right people. The ones who see you clearly and don’t need you to contort yourself to belong. That kind of belonging doesn’t require effort. It feels like exhaling.
So let people dislike you.
Let them project. Let them misunderstand. Let them walk away if they need to. You’re not here to manage everyone’s comfort. You’re here to live a life that doesn’t require you to look back and wonder who you could’ve been if you’d just been braver.
Approval fades. Authenticity compounds.
Choose the thing that lets you sleep at night knowing the person you showed the world is the same one you recognize in the mirror.
Kenrick Vaz 