As you’ll have noticed, I love films and this is another filmic reference. The quote used as the title for this post is from the rather wonderful “Little Miss Sunshine”. For me those words resonated because I think you would need to look very hard to find someone that isn’t “pretending” in at least one area of their lives. To a certain extent we are all actors, trying to play the role we think we’re supposed fulfil with our lives. Sometimes we don’t even pick that role but take on the image we think others have of us, and we run with that.
Shakespeare nailed it in “As you Like it” with Jacques speech “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players...” That struck a chord with me as a teenager when I studied As You Like It. It wasn’t my favourite Shakespeare play (that would be King Lear, even back then madness fascinated me) but it goes to show that things haven’t really changed much since Shakespeare’s day. We all still play our part, the better to make it through the day.
Particularly skilled “social” creatures can play several different parts depending on what the situation requires. This might be instinctive (self preservation being a strong motivator) or for more cynical & manipulative motives (I’ve never trusted charming people, I always wonder what they are really thinking). Saying what we really think or feel, as we think or feel it, is definitely frowned upon by so called “civilised” society.
I like to think of myself as a very honest and open person. However, even I have to pretend in my day-to-day life in order to survive. Sometimes it is because being truly honest would make people uncomfortable (I lapse a lot in this area given my tendency to over-share) but mainly it is because someone in my position is supposed to act a certain way. I have found that the more senior I become within my chosen industry, the less freedom I have. I think that it is a common misconception that junior employees have to tow the line, but the reality is they get away with a lot more on the basis of their youth and newness (their work masks are still in development). It is when you are considered an example to others that you really need to have your work mask firmly fixed and in place.
It isn’t just about the work place but any situation where you are interacting with other people. You may be one person to your family, another to your friends, completely different with your colleagues and once you have your own children you need to decide what kind of parent you want to be. As a result, you can bounce around from being “the sensitive child” to “the extrovert joker” to “the eccentric workaholic” and you may decide that your kids are in need of a “grounded earth mother”.
We all have different faces that we show the world. Even “a spade is a spade” personality is a role. Do any of us really know what our natural, default setting is? Is there such a thing? No wonder we can find it hard to really understand ourselves. We’re pretty complicated creatures and while I am a fan of analysis (it is doing me the world of good), sometimes I think we can over analyse ourselves to the point that we no longer see the wood for the trees.
My view is that you can only try to be true to yourself, which means being true to all those wonderfully different shaped bits of yourself. Unless you’re a sociopath you’ll have an in-built alarm system that will let you know when you are straying from the path. The problem is that we can get so caught up in our own self-image that we might ignore or simply bury both our moral compass and bullshit alarm under layers off irrelevant crap.
We can get lost judging ourselves for the things that we don’t think we did well enough and lose sight of all the great things that we do. I had a friend who, while very upset confessed that she didn’t understand why people liked her. This shocked me, as the role she plays with me is that of a confident, fun and loyal friend. I could easily list 10 reasons why I like her and that is without even trying very hard. Ironically seeing this vulnerable side to her has only made her an even better friend as I admitted that I frequently worry that people will “find me out” and realise that they don’t actually want to be friends with me after all.
So does that sound crazy to you or all too familiar? I’m starting to suspect that I’m not that unusual, much as I like to cling to my uniqueness.
In terms of the week just gone by I flitted through (adopted sounds too calculated) the following roles: understanding friend; concerned colleague; party animal; suffering party animal (aka hungover); eccentric cynic; friendly customer; diplomat; efficient worker; stressed employee; enthusiastic student; polite commuter; victim of workplace politics (oh go on, who doesn’t play this card occasionally?); passionate writer and I’m currently a Sunday evening blogger.
It’s been a pretty standard week with more highs than lows, which is to be celebrated. Now if only I could get my inner athlete to come out to play, life would be fabulous.
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