The Many Masks We Wear
It is amazing how people assume that they can truly know someone. Can you really know someone 100%? If you even think for a moment you can, you are completely lying to yourself. You will only know someone as much as they want you to know them and there is NO way to know exactly how much that is. The only way that you will truly know 100% about someone is if you can read their mind because there are some people who don’t even know themselves.
This got me thinking about how we act and behave around different people. I am really open and honest, but I still find that my behavior changes, even if just a little bit, depending on who I’m with. Whether we realize it or not, I think we just naturally adjust our behavior because we want to hide our feelings, not show a weakness, pretend to be something we aren’t, be liked more, etc. Not saying any of this is good or bad. It just seems to be the way things are.
I know most of the time I use these masks to put up an emotionally brick wall. So although I am mainly me around anyone and everyone, there is plenty I don’t share or let out. I also noticed that I selectively tell people bits of information depending on how close I am to them, but I still don’t think I have ever opened up all the way to anyone. That is mainly because I find that there just aren’t that many people worth trusting and opening up to.
I’m fortunate that I have a great group of close friends, but even then I still don’t completely open up because I feel in doing so that I would burden them. I mean why would you want to add your troubles to the people you care about? This is kind of good and bad. It is good that you don’t bother them with your problems, but the people who really care about you don’t worry about that anyways. The bad is that you miss out on some bonding opportunities that really strengthens relationships. Unfortunately this can also be an opportunity for people to let you down or reveal that they just don’t care. In the end, it is probably best to know where you stand with people.
Knowing this though should allow me to see the changes I need to make, but I have a long way to go before I really would feel comfortable letting new people into the true world of ME. I have found that more times than not it just leads to heartache and frustration. Which in turn ends up just building the brick wall stronger and bigger.
To those that have truly figured out how to remove all your masks I applaud you. Although there are those that will say or think they have when it isn’t true. It is just unfortunate that it is really hard to tell what people truly feel and think.
