Pretender Mercies

A senior colleague was consistently rotten to me -- demeaning, abusive, passive-aggressive. I tried to get him to behave more respectfully, but nothing changed. I now try to avoid him as much as possible. His mom just died, and a co-worker suggested I send him my condolences. But this would feel really insincere. Isn't it important to be authentic?

--Mistreated

If you always expressed your true feelings, you'd probably get arrested a lot -- like if a cop pulls you over and asks, "Do you know why I stopped you?" and you answer, "You have a small penis, and you've yet to hit your ticket quota?" Authenticity is overrated. Sure, it's seriously important when you're bidding $3 million for a Picasso. But in humans, authenticity basically means having the outer you -- your behavior -- match the inner you: your thoughts, desires, feelings, and values. Revealing your hopes, fears, and desires to another person is essential to having real intimacy -- allowing them to really know and understand you. But as with the Officer Cocktail Sausage example, telling the whole truth isn't always ideal. Technically, by not letting rip whatever feeling comes to mind, you're being "inauthentic," "phony," "insincere." However, this view comes out of neuroscientific ignorance. Though we have personality traits that are consistent across time and situations, research by neuroscientists Roger Wolcott Sperry, Michael Gazzaniga, and Joseph LeDoux suggests there is no singular, consistent "real you" -- or "real" anyone, for that matter. Instead, we each appear to be a set of shifting standards, preferences, and practices based on the priorities that a particular situation triggers in our evolved psychology: whether, say, it's survival ("Run for your life!") or mating ("Wanna have coffee? Naked?"). Not having a singular self means we can choose the sort of person we want to be. We do this by coming up with a set of values and acting in line with them. (For more on the practical steps involved, see the "Be Inauthentic!" chapter in my book "Unf*ckology.") In your case, for example, if kindness is one of your values, you might set aside your grievances with your colleague and decide, "You're a fellow human who's suffering, and I'm gonna reach out to say I'm sorry about that." Being kind to a guy you loathe is actually an act of sincerity when your behavior aligns with your values. If only "killing 'em with kindness" were more than a figure of speech...then you could call dibs on this meanie's swanky office as they wheeled him out in a body bag. ... For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.