You are really mixing up authenticity, success, and fitting in. Each is its own thing.

Authenticity is being comfortable in your own skin and being the same person no matter who is around you. Fitting in is being what you think others what you to be. Success is a subjective measure of society.

> It’s also much easier to be authentic if you are driven by an urge to succeed as measured by the business world or if you have a desire to fit in wherever you are

No, this can be why midlife or other identity crisis happens. You wake up after 15-20 years of this and don't know who you are or where you are going in life.

How do you square being authentic with a world where more and more of the benefits go the people who succeed in the business world and the need for financial stability? What are your options if you are not cut out for that world and have no other talents that are financially useful? One way is to be born indecently wealthy obviously but if you haven’t accomplished that then for most of us the only way is to put on a mask every day and play the game.

> How do you square being authentic...

What do you value for your own well-being? That's where you will find the answer.

Ops point that you quoted makes sense. Here’s another way to think about this -

Your personal motivation might be financial security or something else, but you might be in a position where you are perceived or measured based on some metric that you personally don’t care about any more than you have to insofar as it’s helps you in securing your job, pay, safe environment, or whatever else. Not everyone has the luxury of easily changing teams or moving across the country for their actual work passion and people are all at different points of their lives. My motivations are probably different than yours.

These concepts should not be dismissed as being orthogonal by some textbook definition. I’m not sure what being pedantic adds to the conversation.

> Your personal motivation...

I'm sharing my personal experience. Authenticity doesn't come from any motivation. It is not transactional. It is more about being vulnerable, and less about being right.

> These concepts should not be dismissed as being orthogonal by some textbook definition. I’m not sure what being pedantic adds to the conversation.

Touche. Thanks for your feedback.

Yeah, if I was my real self I would probably get punched. I can fake it most of the time but if I get run down and my real self comes out then everybody hates me.

What the 'real you' means can be left up to debate.

Imo trying to live up to our own expectations of ourselves isn't faking it, but we don't always manage to live up to them either.

Is the run-down version of you the real you? How are you when you are well rested and having a generally pleasant day?

In that case you should put effort into changing, rather than hiding, your self.

What exactly do you fake at work? I fake nothing in my life, including work, and don't really understand this.

Maybe this is a cultural thing?