For many, and myself, masks become defense mechanisms. We believe we can only accomplish remarkable feats when we wear them. This can also mute our rawest emotions, providing a false sense of relief that we are doing ‘great’ on paper while our true feelings remain unexamined. The problem is the more we dismiss these feelings, the more we need the mask to defend ourselves against the emotions we want to avoid.
The mask itself becomes a coping strategy against really staring ourselves in the mirror and seeing ourselves for who we are. That might be too painful. When we neglect our true colors for so long, even entertaining the idea of experiencing self-examination can be traumatizing, so we would rather wear the mask than experience the pain of truth.
We would rather dissociate ourselves from ourselves than embrace who we truly are.
As a result, we witness a direct impact on the way we live our lives — fragmented lives, putting work in one box, isolating our personal affairs in another, and desperately trying to find a “work-life balance” rather than integrating our lives’ various aspects to achieve harmony and equilibrium. This compartmentalization of life inevitably leads to the fragmentation of the self. Of ourselves.
We buy into the idea that our true selves are somehow a liability. We start to smooth out every unique, messy, and imperfect trait we have, just to fit in. It’s like when people turn to Botox or plastic surgery, trying to erase the lines of experience or reshape their bodies to meet some external standard — hiding the features that make them stand out. We bend ourselves to blend in, to go unnoticed, to avoid making anyone uncomfortable…to become literal squares.
But those so-called imperfections — the lines, the curves, the quirks — are exactly what make us human, what make us whole. By stripping them away, we lose touch with our authentic selves, and in doing so, we lose the very essence of what makes us unique.
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