We all become what we pretend to be

©Dale Rogerson

As a child, she loved pretending and wearing costumes. Her favourite drama teacher warned that “no one can wear a mask for very long”. She needed to learn to distinguish when she was playing a role, and when she was being herself.

It was a dangerous thing to wear a mask and a costume; “we all become what we pretend to be”.

They strange thing she realised while acting was that a single person can wear many masks. And with each, they’ll tell another truth.

Yet, she loved to act; simply by changing looks and attitude, she could be anyone.

“A man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth” – Oscar Wilde

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

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A rattling realisation

It is said that it takes something rattling to reveal who you truly are and what you want. But it takes something equally dramatic to shake you into realising who you truly have around you. We don’t really know the people in our lives. We only know as much as they allow us to see.

We often spend years thinking of a person as our closest ally, someone with whom we share our darkest secrets, our most intimate thoughts and our sincerest dreams. Only for a time to come – an incident to occur – that will serve as a slap in the face and we will come to see that they were nothing of what we thought. People we consider friends turn out to be snakes – deceitful and sly, sometimes even stabbing us in the back while all the while smiling widely and offering us support.

These are the worst kind of people; those who act as close associates in life, but tend to behave in the exact opposite way of how they advise you. They are usually the ones who blame others to you, yet hypocritically befriend them as if nothing ever occurred. The ones who see how others have wronged you but instead of – ethically, at least – taking your side, continue to have more communication and flattery-exchange with the former than with you.

There are people whose behaviour you cannot understand simply because it is completely contrary to the way you would act. Not everyone shares the same mindset or beliefs. And certainly not everyone has the same heart as you. Perhaps that is the most difficult to acquiesce or apprehend. That sometimes there is simply no answer to the question ‘why’ and we just need to accept the reality of things, let go, and move on.

If anything, for our own peace of mind.

When you realise you deserve better

©Dawn Miller

When your body and mind are asking for a break, the best thing to do is respect it. Leave. Go out of town to a secluded countryside and breathe.

Let go of all the toxicity that is infiltrating your life. From all the wrong people with their abusive and bad-mannered behaviours, to every single thing that is costing you your peace of mind.

You are easily disappointed because you expect from others all the things you’d be willing to do for them.

When you realise you deserve better, things begin to change.

And you begin to shine a bit brighter.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

It’ll do so, unrestrained

There was a young man who each day sat at his doorstep gazing at passers-by as if waiting for something, for someone. He would spend the whole day there, anticipating; his eagerness and enthusiasm dimming with the last of the sun’s light. But each morning, he would be there again, repeating the process.

An old woman who would make the passage by his house each day on her road to the market noticed the young man and this pattern of his. She observed the brightness in his eyes at the start of the day and how it was darkened as the day faded. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was looking for, what he was expecting.

But the more she observed each passing day, the more she understood.

So one day, she stopped in front of his doorstep and stood right in front of him hiding the sun from his eyes.

“There is no use waiting here at the door of your house, staring at the dead streets ahead. If it’ll come, it will do so without you knowing from where or how. It will approach you suddenly; it will find  you even from behind, softly closing your eyes that are so tired of road-watching. And when you ask who it is, you’ll understand by that skip in your heartbeat. There is no use waiting. If it’ll come, it will do so. Even if everything is wide shut, you’ll see it right in front of you, and it will be the first to embrace you with open arms. It won’t matter if you’re ready or well prepared or not. It won’t change a thing if you run after it or crawl at its feet. If it’ll come, it will do so. Otherwise it will just pass you by”.

The old lady paused, inhaled a deep breath allowing her words to sink into the boy, then turned around and left.

He stood there for a moment, petrified. And then, went inside and shut the door.

If it’ll come, love will find its way.

Inspired by a poem by Kostas Ouranis

Art inside

Michelangelo had said that “every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”. The same is true for people. We all hide something great inside, waiting for the right circumstances to externalise, to gain form and light.

Like an artist expresses something of himself on a sculpture, so we too live our lives as an expression of who we are.

Also part of Weekend Writing Prompt #144

Adjust your focus

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It began to rain suddenly, with black clouds sailing in fast to hide the sun. It had been suffocative and humid from early morning. Perhaps that explained the agitation that had overtaken most people.

He had just cleaned the windows, proudly admiring how spotlessly clean they had become.

But they became all foggy again.

And that is when he remembered something he had seen in an ad just a few hours ago: “when life gets blurry, adjust your focus”.

Indeed, “we often see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it”.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Mentality is a way of life

©MCD_Agrigento

There is a saying that we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us. Going somewhere different not only breaks your routine and revives you, but it also allows you to open your eyes and mind to things you never even considered before.

Not everyone thinks or acts the same way we do, and we generally have this ingrained belief that what ‘our people’ do is the norm, the standard against which everyone else is compared or measured.

The truth is though, when we travel, we might find alternatives that may even be better to our way of life. We may see things and people who change our perspectives. We may even talk to locals and find out that they are more calm, relaxed and happy living in what seems like a backward village, than others who live in big cities.

We see people smiling without any particular reason, who always have something good to say and who wish you a pleasant day without knowing you at all. That is just who they are and what they are used to. Kindness is a way of life.

It is these same people who know how to keep calm in every situation, who find no reason in getting angry or irritated at something they cannot control. They follow traditions that they have grown with and see no point in altering them if they still work well.

Because in the end, it is not the technology that makes people advanced; it is their mentality. And that is the most difficult thing of all to change.

Take a break

Taking an out-of-season holiday has the benefit of being able to relax when everyone else is busy or working. It’s great being able to enjoy doing nothing – or rather something that amuses you – without the crowds, the hustle and bustle of everyone else doing exactly the same, as it usually happens during holiday seasons.

Being able to take time-off every once in a while is a luxury we owe ourselves.

Remember, that almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. And that includes you too.

It’s exhausting trying to satisfy everyone else, to the extent that you neglect your own satisfaction and self-care. But ultimately, that is what matters most. Because if you are feeling great, if your mind is at peace, then your body will follow. If you don’t take a break, your body will do it for you, and at the most inconvenient of times.

We need to learn to relax and switch off every so often. It’s the only way to appreciate the world around us, to discover new places, to interact with new people, to feed our self-confidence and to grow.

Sometimes you need to take a break from the noise to be able to appreciate the silence and remind yourself of who you are and who you want to be.

“The breaks you take from work pay you back manifold when you return because you come back with a fresher mind and newer thinking. Some of your best ideas come when you’re on vacation” – Gautam Singhania

The strength of the human spirit

The 4^th of February may mean different things to different people. It may also mean nothing at all and just be another day. But the 4^th of February each year is World Cancer Day. It is an international day marked to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment.

Many of us know someone who at some point in their life fought a battle they never thought they would face. Some of the fighters – be they survivors or victims – are people close to us. People who have shown us that cancer is not a death sentence, it is not something whose name we should not utter, but rather it is merely a word, a life sentence that pushes one to live.

People who fight cancer and all its consequences understand what it means to never give up hope, to show courage by taking each day at a time and promising to fight a bit more the next day. They understand what Christopher Reeve meant when he said that “once you choose hope, anything is possible” and they have felt it more than anyone else that the human spirit is much stronger than anything that can happen to it.

Cancer is a battle we may need to fight more than once. Courage comes from not giving up. Because sometimes you have to go through things and not around them to survive. But that only makes you more determined to persist, to win. And it gives hope and sets a prominent example to those around you.

People who have faced cancer are the ones who know what life means and what matters most in it. Because they have faced something they cannot describe, but have come out stronger, sometimes clenching their teeth so that their families don’t see them suffering. And for that, they deserve more than just our respect and a single day to commemorate them.

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have” (Cayla Mills).