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Kurt Vonnegut - "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." · the Daily Quote - Positive Daily Inspiration and Motivational Quote of the Day

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  Dot com. Welcome to the Daily Quote, the
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  podcast designed to kick start your day in a positive way.
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  I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, and this episode is brought to
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  you by the Great News Podcast. Link is in the show notes.
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  Today's quote comes from Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist,
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  satirist, and one of the great literary voices of the 20th
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  century. The quote is this.
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  We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we
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  pretend to be. Most people interpret this quote
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  as a piece of motivational wisdom and encouragement to act
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  as if you're already the person you want to become.
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  And that is valid. There's real truth in it.
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  The research on identity based behavior.
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  The psychology of rural adoption.
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  James Clear's voting metaphor that we spoke about on the
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  previous episode. All of this points to the same
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  direction. Pretend long enough,
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  consistently enough, and that pretending becomes the being.
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  But Vonnegut wasn't writing a motivational quote.
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  He was writing a warning. Mother Knight tells the story of
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  Howard Campbell, an American spy who infiltrates the Nazi
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  propaganda machine, broadcasting vile ideology to 1,000,000 while
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  secretly embedding coded messages for the Allied forces.
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  He tells himself throughout that it doesn't matter what he says
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  because he knows who he really is on the inside.
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  The performance is just a performance.
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  The pretending is just pretending.
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  Except it isn't. Vonnegut's point is that the
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  separation between how we act externally and who we really are
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  is imaginary. Our character consists of our
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  actions, and any other distinction is an illusion.
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  Campbell becomes what he pretends to be, The costume
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  fuses to the skin. The role becomes the man.
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  This is the double edge of the quote, and also what makes it so
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  much more interesting than a simple call to positive
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  thinking. Yes, pretending to be
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  disciplined eventually makes you disciplined.
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  Pretending to be confident makes you confident eventually, and
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  pretending to be generous makes you generous.
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  The becoming is real, but so is the other direction.
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  Pretending to be someone who cuts corners eventually makes
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  you someone who cuts corners. Pretending that small
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  dishonesties don't matter eventually makes you someone to
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  whom they don't. Pretending to be indifferent to
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  the people around you eventually makes you indifferent.
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  The costume always fuses to the skin in the end, for better or
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  for worse. Vonnegut's warning is simply
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  this. The pretending is never neutral.
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  It is always quietly becoming who you are.
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  This quote makes me think carefully about what I'm
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  pretending to be in small, daily moments nobody sees, because
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  those are the ones that actually shaped the answer.
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  Not the big public declarations of intent, but the quiet daily
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  performance of who I'm choosing to be in the moments that feel
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  too small to matter. Because Vonnegut is right.
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  They all count. They're all becoming something.
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  The question is whether I'm paying attention to what.
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  So here's the question. What are you deliberately
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  pretending to be that you want to grow into?
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  Because keep going, the becoming is real and it's already
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  happening. And what are you pretending?
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  Doesn't matter that quietly, gradually is making you into
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  someone you didn't choose to be, because the costume always fuses
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  to the skin, that pretending always becomes the being.
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  Vonnegut knew this. Howard Campbell learned it too
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  late. We are what we pretend to be.
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  Choose the pretending carefully. That's going to do it for today.
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  I'm Andrew McGivern, signing off for now, but I'll be back
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  tomorrow. Same pod time, same pod station
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  with another daily quote.