Common Sense Health: Our Self Deceptions Are Being Watched

By Diana Gifford-Jones on July 25, 2025.

I’m writing this column with a pencil and paper, in a therapeutic affirmation that what results comes only from me and my thoughts. I’m making a point about authenticity.

There is something truly cathartic – and healthy – about “being oneself”. One’s authentic self. No mirrors. No makeup. No pretenses.

Authenticity is hard to define. Put simply, you might say it is an alignment between a person’s internal state and external expression. I wonder how many people feel they have achieved personal authenticity.

How many even try for it?

Common sense would suggest being authentic is tied to health and happiness. But I need to set down my pencil and resort to a keyboard and research repositories to find out how significant the relationship is.

And it turns out, the results are compelling and not surprising. Authenticity is a key mechanism producing healthy personal relationships. It reduces strain at work and is associated with higher job performance and satisfaction. In online contexts as well, authenticity is positively associated with self-esteem and negatively with anxiety.

But humans have a self-destructive gene. Why do so many people engage in foolish behaviours that are so clearly not in their best interest? Smoking is the obvious example. But there are many, many more. And the consequences are detrimental.

When people consistently make outward life choices that don’t align with their internal values and beliefs, it triggers a chronic stress response – one that ultimately takes a toll on their health.

Think about what you are doing now, tonight, or tomorrow. If you are not comfortable with it being splashed on the frontpage of the national newspaper, then reevaluate and get things fixed! It may mean coming to terms with hard habits to break. It may mean a few tough discussions. But beware, because the days of being able to hide our private problems are coming to an end.

We are being observed. And listened to. The humourous advice used to be, “Don’t pick your nose in the front yard.” The neighbours could be watching. Now, in the privacy of your own home, you can’t express dissatisfaction with a mess on the floor without an advertisement for a vacuum cleaner popping up on your smart phone sometime soon after.

For better or for worse, the world has become – in large part thanks to the unrelenting tsunami of invasive technology – a fine habitat for the exposure of inauthenticity, because we are being watched even when we think we have some privacy.

We must adapt or perish.

So no better time than now to be your authentic self. Take a moment to recalibrate. What would you not want broadcast on a jumbotron? What misdoings need your management and corrections. How can you fix your problems before they get out of hand?

It seems to me there are just two options. One, cut out of your life anything you currently feel you need to hide. Get rid and be done with it. If you can’t talk about it with your spouse, your kids, or your neighbours, you had better have a good reason – as in, you are an intelligence officer – otherwise, dismantle these things and banish them forever away.

Alternatively, talk about them. Bring them out in the open. Invite reasonable minds to work out the details with you, so that you can be an authentic individual.

We are up against tough circumstances, bitter fighting, and dangerous affairs in this crazy world of ours. We’d all be a lot better off if we accepted each other for who we are and stopped all the fooling around.