Masks

Here is a re-issue of a blog I posted almost 3 years ago, it came to mind after what has recently happened to me by a previous employer, it is now even more relevant.

What makes you what you are?

Are you really the person you'd like to think you are?

Who looks out at you from the mirror each morning?

Are you proud or comfortable with that person?

Reality check

I'd like to think I had the good looks that male (after all I am male) movie stars have (without all the surgery), but thats not who looks out of the mirror at me in the morning.

Yes I have a full head of hair, brown and now with some flecks of grey in, which are far more obvious once I've visited the hairdresser, thats when my kids and wife, bless them, take great pleasure in telling me I'm going grey....Thanks babes.

Where I used to have a nice flat tummy, I now have what I affectionately call my 'one pack', the only downfall about this is that my wife, when she sees it exposed, has to scrape herself up off the floor where she's collapsed with laughter and the kids will come up and pat it and ask me when its due. Its not through lack of trying to get rid of it, well at least cut it down to size. I walk to work everyday, about two - three miles, come rain or shine, but I think the real reason for it suddenly expanding is that I gave up smoking on 23 July this year.

Yes I can remember the date and the time, that my addiction had to stop, and with an embarassed admission, better than I can remember the wedding aniversary, (I've never been good with dates!) The trouble is that my appetite increased, and so did the tummy, but worst of all I really miss smoking, my stress reliever, my comforter, my friends.

OK, I drifted off the point a bit here. So going back to the main point,

Are you who you think you are?

Do people view you how you think you are?

The answer I think for everyone is no.

People always tell me that I'm kind and patient and have a knack of speaking my mind, but in a kind way trying not to demolish people and trying to help anyone who is in distress, or I feel has been unfairly treated. Except my wife who hears me swearing in the kitchen when something goes wrong, or I drop something (even though I say I love cooking), and there are other small pointers that all may not be well with this inside view. Intolerance of others in particular the hatred of abuse of others and as a trainer of what constitutes abuse I can look around me and see abuse everywhere I look.

From the person in street barging past an elderly person or a mother with a young child to 'clever' comments left in full view for others to see, either on desks or worse still on the internet. Snide remarks said just within earshot, and all this with an inability to see the damage that is being done to a fellow human being. These are just the 'light' side of abuse before it gets to the physical or mental or emotional side. On the net it is even worse as many will hide behind an alias, otherwise they would not be brave enough to be so cutting or nasty.

I also don't mean those who tell the truth on the net, those who have been treated badly, abused, or just treated shamefully by cowards, bullies and cheats, they know who they are, yet they hide behind the 'law' or behind company policy, these are the real criminals, as their dishonesty is a far deeper one, it is branded into their soul.

These are the masks we all wear, whether you be male or female, there are the feral among us, for whom to deliver abuse is normal and natural, but then ask the question, if I can see this, what may be going on behind closed doors?

So are you, who you would like to think you are?

And are you what you would like others to think you are, or are you wearing a mask for our benefit?