“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ― Kurt Vonnegut
Every lie is two lies. The lie we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to convince ourselves. While the former is abominable, the latter is perilous.
Yes! We’re just a little smarter and funnier too. While we’re at it, we automatically become more appealing. Our strengths have touched a new high while our weaknesses are at an all-time low. Our successes are hard earned while the failures are God’s fault.
We indulge in self-denials, hide the blemishes in our personality that remove the unpleasant evidence of our lumps. These lumps are the most distinct entities and they truly define us. However, we fail to accept who we are as we are. Self-deception alleviates stress, benefits relationships, enhances confidence, but is it worth it?
We get flustered and unsettled when we observe what’s going around us. Our minds are a jumble of conscious and unconscious elements that allow us to deceive and get deceived. We get anxious too early and too easily and this is why we build the fort of self-deception. We lie to ourselves until we push out the truth in the black hole of our minds. We keep secrets from ourselves because the truth, simply put, is painful and too much to handle for our fragile minds.
You ever talk to yourself? You ever introspect? You ever instill the courage in yourself to accept the hard facts and face the reality? You ever motivate yourself to fight your flaws, negate them with your qualities and improve yourself? You ever tell yourself it’s okay to slack a little? You ever tell yourself it’s okay to be imperfect? You ever realize the empty spaces surrounding you are yours and shouldn’t be filled by anyone else?
You’re one distinct person but that doesn’t mean you have a single definition. You’re defined by your morsels of truths and lies, by your perfections and imperfections, by your thoughts and actions, by your feelings and insensibilities, by your words and phrases. However, most of the time we don’t look ourselves close enough to recognize what is perfect about ourselves and what is not. Most occasions, we adapt to the environment around us and with different people, we bring out different versions of ourselves. The real version never gets to see the light of the day.
We all have developed a hankering of being accepted and liked by every living soul we know. We try on different identities just as we try shoes to see which suits the best and is the most comfortable. We all have an abyss of our own where we don’t look often because we are too busy looking up to others.
When your glimpse fails, you become indifferent.
When your charm fails, you become repulsive.
When your song fails, you become white noise.
When your attention fails, you become indifferent.
When your cogitation fails, you become precise.
When your embrace fails, you become cynic.
When your feeling fails, you become insensitive.
When your boundary fails, you find new boundaries to build.