It's human nature to want to be popular with the "in crowd," to act hip, wear trendy clothes, look cool in the eyes of others. It's easy to be influenced by glossy magazine articles, television talk shows, and the unending media hype that puts the emphasis on style over substance.

But there's a price to pay for facile adaptations of the latest fads and popular attitudes. The gain in popularity is often accompanied by a loss of the very qualities that make each of us unique! Sometimes, while caught up in the desire to be liked by others, we end up not liking ourselves.

While vacationing in Nova Scotia one summer, I read an insightful column in the Halifax Globe and Mail that described in down-to-earth words the difference between being genuine and putting on a façade. The rural farmers and fishermen of rugged Newfoundland, the columnist pointed out, put up the clap board on their houses "rough side out." Mainlanders, on the other hand, applied it "smooth side out," which meant that it would have to be painted every five years.

To the hardy islanders this was an abnormality they couldn't understand. "In Newfoundland," a taciturn old-timer explained, "we puts the rough side out and when we paints, it lasts a lifetime."

As a therapist, I observe many of my clients trying so terribly hard to fit in, to put on a face that is "smooth side out." In their desire to be "Mainlanders" they gloss over the singular virtues that make them extraordinary. But in reality, under this smoothness there is a real person with the unpretentious roughness of the clapboard, a true persona that doesn't have to be painted over in order to look good on the outside. When we turn toward, rather than away, from our true natures, we nurture our connection with the source of who we really are, and make it possible to connect with others honestly and enduringly.

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