Beneath the Mask

Beneath the Mask

She had blue skin, 

And so did he. 

He kept it hid 

And so did she. 

They searched for blue 

Their whole life through, 

Then passed right by- 

And never knew.” 

― Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It

We all wear one, to some extent.  We all hide different pieces of ourselves, disguising our faults and flaws, those things we see as unacceptable and shameful.  At work, we wear a thicker, bigger, tighter mask than we wear anywhere else.  We are told this is what we are supposed to do.  To keep our messy, personal selves to ourselves.  To leave our heart at home.  Our pain.  Our issues.  So we wear a mask and smile and pretend to be perfect, professional, positive, perky and proficient.

But not "people."  We must never be people.  People are flawed.  People have weaknesses.  People have problems.  No.  We are employees.  Assets.  Resources.  Headcount. At work, being a person is verboten. And so, we don our mask...then off to work we go.

There is so much pressure to wear the mask.  Many employers act as if, by sheer will, we can somehow transform ourselves into robotic gladiators who have no weaknesses.  We are expected to be stars.  Superheroes.  So we deny our failings and camouflage our Achilles heel.  We lie about who we are, all while claiming to be honest and transparent.  We feel the pressure to perform; it weighs us down and tortures us with fear of failing.  We bow to the expectations of the powerful.  We tremble in terror when we make a mistake, dreading dire repercussions.  We know...we must be the mask!

But how productive can we be in this restrictive environment, chained by fear, refuting our personhood?  How can this spur creativity and ingenuity?  How can it propel us forward, help us to be our best or to fully achieve?  To learn? To soar?

Though we deny it and hide it and put on a face, we are, indeed, human.  Wearing a mask isn't going to change that fact. It just makes us tired, trying to keep our fake face in place all day.  And so, we become less than who we truly are, selectively leaving vast pieces of ourselves behind hidden in the darkness.

No matter how "normal" people look, living "ordinary" lives, everyone has a story to tell. And maybe, just like you, everyone else is a misfit too.”
―Sanhita Baruah

We all have blue skin.  Imperfections.  Flaws.  Weakness.  We have bad thoughts.  We make stupid decisions.  We do the wrong thing.  Or maybe we do the right thing, but at the wrong time.  We fall flat on our face.  We are broken in many different ways, but we are all broken, at least a little bit.  We have things we do well and things we don't do well at all.  Yes, we are all blue and we think we're the only one because we cling to our masks and insist we aren't, never knowing everyone else is doing the same.

The mask erodes our personality in so many ways. It inhibits our growth and development.  It holds us back, locked away in fear.  It prevents us from taking necessary risks and leaps.  It isolates us.  Imprisons us. Zaps us of energy and fire.

Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?”
― Soren Kierkegaard 

We will never be the very best "us" we can be while pretending to be someone we are not.

We need to look beneath the mask.  Remove it.

I'm not advocating losing control and behaving like children.  Nor do I believe we have to say everything that comes into our head or act on every impulse. Neither do we have to completely, utterly bare our souls.  This is not what it means to toss the mask.

No, removing the mask requires courage and maturity.  It means walking into reality and living there.  Being genuine. Dealing with what is and not what we pretend to be. It means facing our inadequacies and embracing our strengths and talents.  It means taking off our gladiator armor.  Allowing ourselves to be real, unpretentious, flawed people, accepting our humanness, owning our mess.  We still attempt to do great things.  We try to be better. We keep growing. But when we remove the mask, we are no longer afraid to admit we don't know everything, aren't always perfect and can't do it all.  Risky business.  But freeing.

“Like icebergs, people normally expose only a small part of themselves, and generally just the part they wish to show.”
―Nikki Sex, Fate

Removing the mask means we unearth the rest of the iceberg and become whole.

It means, we let ourselves, our real selves, be seen.

It means we accept ourselves for who we are; the extraordinary and the ugly.  It means we may not always have a good day, no matter how hard we work at it.  That we may say something we wish we hadn't and for which we must apologize.  It means we may miss something sometimes. Make mistakes that have to be fixed, even though we tried so hard not to.  Mistakes that make us wonder at our sanity and that cause us to want to beat our head against the wall. But we must not give in to the temptation to beat ourselves up.  Instead, we acknowledge our flaws, forgive ourselves, fix the error and move on, having learned from our failure.  For you see, removing the mask means we are free to be imperfect.  To not always, every second, have our act together.  We can be human. A person.  Even at work.

We are as liquid as the tide.  We ebb and flow.

It also means we accept that others have weaknesses and imperfections. We let them take off their mask.  We allow them to be blue without shaming them.  Or using it against them.

When we aren't required to hide and cower beneath our mask, we are free to fail at times...but also to magnificently succeed.  We are allowed to risk.  To say something stupid that just might turn out to be genius.  We are no longer working in isolation and fear.  Without the masks, we find compassion and commonality.  We cooperate.  Collaborate.  Create.

This allows us to use our energy for greater accomplishments. We are more inspired. We don't have to protect ourselves all the time.  No longer worried about being unmasked, our minds can move on to more productive projects.  We can accomplish greater things because we aren't spending all our energy hiding and covering our blue skin.  We aren't wasting time trying to protect our back.

By being yourself, you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before. ~Edwin Elliot

That's when we discover being blue is not such a horrid thing.  It's a human thing.  A people thing.  And being a "people," even at work...is okay.

We build bridges. Between each other. We accept each other. We work together.

Harder still, we accept ourselves.  All of the pieces of ourselves.

Once we stop rejecting and hiding ourselves away, we can find out who we truly are. We meet the person lurking beneath the mask.  Then, we can discover who we are meant to be, what we are meant to do and where our talents and passions are leading us. We can grow...and soar.  Almost like a superhero.

When we soar, we see more.  Once we are free of our mask, that tiring mask that weighs us down and holds us back, we can help others to see and soar and find freedom too.  This new perspective, this new way of being, of accepting ourselves and others, of living fully and genuinely, changes our entire world.

And when our world changes in such an astounding way, everything, absolutely everything, shifts.  Righting itself.  Finally.

 #buildlittlebridges   #lookbeneaththemask  #bluerocks

Written by

Robin Bond