Being Real, Being Honest, Not Being A Coward

“Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.” ~George Bernard Shaw~

So many people hide who they really are, afraid of being judged, afraid of being less than someone else, or maybe they feel a bit jealous of the life others lead and to sooth that negativity they feel, they create a skin to live in that looks an awful lot like that other persons.
But something happens after a while, and you begin to see it unfold. Anger and hatred start to fill in the space between what is real and what is a mask. A sneakiness slinks into their lives and they start looking for things to find fault in with others, mostly the very people they try to imitate.
It take a conscious effort on a daily basis to feel good about being ourselves. The world seems to foster being copies, living like someone else. Dressing like others, being measured by the standards set up by some element of society. It takes far more strength to be yourself than it does to hide behind a mask, and we all know from the stories that even with a mask on, our true identity is at some point revealed. It is said that when a mask, worn for a long time is removed, some of our own true skin comes with it.
I know a man that never has company to his mansion on a hillside, for fear that his true life will be seen, and that others will see his entire life is a sham. He does not have a happy home, and his mansion is filled with chaos, both emotionally and in the way it looks inside. He is miserable, lonely and filled with insecurity. He thinks his mask is on securely and that no one knows, but the fruit of the life he wishes to portray is not there. Everyone can see behind the untruth, behind the dishonesty, behind the mask.
Hey, I am the first one to admit that trying to be real, be yourself, march proudly to your own drumbeat is not an easy thing. At times I personally would love to just cave in and march to a well know tune just so I could blend in a bit, but I am never ever really happy when I give that a try. For an example...
I just can't conform to someone elses idea of who and what God is to me and I know with all my heart that's not what he wants anyway. He is what he is to me because no one else in the world is just like me. Each child has a unique relationship with their parents, not even the same as the relationship their siblings have. Parents do not have identical relationships with each child they have, not more or less I hope, but different, fitting in with their personality, their character and their spirit. No one is the same and knowing that should give us a bit of courage to be who we are. To walk comfortably towards our own purpose in life, not trying to fit into some other skin and try to fulfill a purpose not meant for us.
Live your life as its meant to be lived. Own your feelings, embrace the ones that work well in your life and work on changing the ones that cause problems. If you are stressed from trying to be something, look at it head on and question the validity of it. If you are working in a job you hate, be brave and look for something new, don't let fear cripple you and rob you. Live so true to yourself that you don't need external trappings to define you. Be so well defined, that in any circumstances you can be real. Meaning, you don't have to have this or that to try and show the world what you think they want to see.
If you are saying and doing things undercover,with a false identity, it's a sure sign you are not being honest in who you are, not feeling comfortable in your own skin. Time for some self discovery perhaps.

Here are some quotes I really like...they are my reminders to be real, stay marching to my own drum beat

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them. ~François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~e.e. cummings

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep. ~Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1750

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you? ~Fanny Brice

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. ~Walter Kaufmann