This blog is all about being truthful so I will admit that when I started thinking about my topic for this week’s #ThursdayThoughts, I realized I didn’t have one. There’s so much I could talk about, yes, the impeachment yesterday, the holidays, all of those emotions that hit at this time of year as you get ready to wrap up one year and start another. Those are all completely valid and deserving topics worthy of discussion, but ultimately it was watching a TV show finale while finishing up my Christmas cards in the wee hours of the morning that gave me my idea for this week’s blog. Thank you to “The Masked Singer” and no, I won’t be including any spoilers in here. I don’t play that way, you know that.
I started thinking about all of the things that the celebrities on the show who are eventually unmasked have said about their experience and why they loved doing the the show so much. In fact, there was a very memorable confession from the winner (again, don’t worry, I won’t reveal which character or who they really were). The winner got emotional as he/she expressed how much they appreciated being able to hide behind the mask and be judged solely by their talent and not by their appearance or other things people perceive about them, true or not, or their previous work. And I thought about all of us and the masks that we wear every day. There’s a lot of people out here who profess to be authentic but none of us are truly ourselves, not really. The only place that we are unabashedly real in the privacy of our own home. Only the person or people behind that closed door knows the real story, and the only thing the rest of us can do is speculate.
So as we walk through life going to our jobs, taking part in hobbies networking and catching up with friends and family who we might normally confide in, we don’t usually take off our masks off completely because we may be afraid of what the people on the other side of it may think of that person — Will it be impress? Will it live up to expectations? Will it be enough to keep them in our life? There are few people for whom we will shed our mask completely and it really is a shame that we cannot be more comfortable and secure in ourselves to be exactly who we are all the time in whatever company we keep. Life is short. Some of us have learned that a lot this year, losing people important to us and we may find ourselves wishing we had done more, said more to that person while they were on this Earth. Just think if we used that time being more of who we really are, imagine how much more meaningful our relationships could be, what chickenshit fears and worries we would let roll of our backs and how much more focused we could be on what was most important of all, our work at hand, whatever it is. All if we were willing to exist without our masks in place.
I have a job for you today. Okay it’s like homework. I want you to do something today that is true to who you are but maybe something you wouldn’t normally do before people you know or out in public (no indecent exposure incidents or anything though, okay?) Dance in front of others to a song you might not want other people to know you secretly adore. Don’t be embarrassed. Be you. Sing along to the Christmas carols a little bit louder than you normally do because you feel self-conscious about your voice. Belt it out, my friend. Take a trip to the store without putting on any makeup or those shoes that give you an extra couple inches of height, and don’t worry about how you look. You look great!
Let us see who you really are. I hope you find it fun and liberating, maybe even a little cathartic. As always, thanks for reading. ~ Chris K.
(art by Lorenzo Lippi)
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