INTROSPECTION
Lemon and honey, gram flour and milk, or even store-bought masks can do wonders for our skin tone. But, sorry to disappoint you: I would rather discuss the masks that people wear throughout their lives. These masks are basically customized by humans as per their personal preferences. And the number one reason behind the customization of these masks is fear in each one of us.
Fear can be of anything: the fear of not being good enough, intelligent enough, pretty enough, etc. We are surrounded by people almost all our lives, but do we truly know each other? Isn’t it
astonishing that the people around us don’t even know us! They only know the version of us that we display, not our true selves. We are judged on the basis of masks we wear on a day to day basis.
We cannot be categorized as good humans or bad humans: we are neither all good or all bad, as we are just humans. We are flawed creatures, and each one of us has two sides: a light side and a dark side. It is the light side that we show more often to people because we want to be liked and loved.
But, then, we have a dark side, too, that we are afraid to display. We are afraid that people may dislike us or hate us if they knew that side of us. Deep down, may be all of us are chronic people pleasers. We have convinced ourselves that we won’t be accepted and loved by people around us if we don’t show ourselves in a good light. That is why each one of us possesses a collection of masks that we put on, depending upon the situation or the occasion.
There are, however, two types of masks we wear the most. The first mask we put on while we are with family and friends, the second mask is reserved for strangers. We only unmask when NO ONE is around us.
We wear a mask for so long that sometimes we forget who we really are beneath it. Consequently, even if we are loved, it is not for who we really are. It is the masked version of us that people love!
People don’t love us for our true selves as we hardly ever disclose ourselves to anyone. They like/dislike and judge us on the basis of the masks we put on right before meeting them. I believe that’s why people say he/she has changed but, in reality, they don’t really change: they simply hid their true selves from them, and showed the side they knew would be liked and accepted by the other person.
It is heartbreaking to even think about the loneliness that people suffer from behind these masks. At the end of the day we all are just scared and emotional living creatures.
All of us have heard this idiom at one point or another: ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. But, I think, it wouldn’t be wrong either if we say: ‘Don’t judge a person by the mask they wear’. In short, behind masks there are souls we don’t know a thing about.