“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinion. Their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” — Oscar Wilde
Being raised in the South, in Texas no less, where everything is bigger and louder and proud of the fact, it was inevitable that I would grow up surrounded by a cast of colorful characters. There was Mr. Hays, who had arms like tree trunks and a laugh like a con man, with a generous grin that turned his face into a wrinkled napkin. There was Ms. McWhorter, my 7th grade teacher, with her 50’s grey hair, and dueling silver chains that perpetually hung from her glasses that never once moved from her face. There was Coach Stout, who once told me to get my thumb out of my ass, then dared me to run home and tattle to my daddy that he had used foul language. (I never did.) There was Mrs. Schuster, a buxom woman, fond of broaches, who ran the church choir, and everything else church-related, except for my dad, who was the pastor. Nobody ran him. Ever.
I grew up fascinated by the pageantry of it all. Everybody had a role, and their own way of filling it. Everyone had a place, a slot in the line up, a kind of belonging, you could say. It took a long time for me to figure out it was all just a play.
Most of it, anyway. Sure, some of it was real. Love. Friendships. Raising kids. But pretty much all the rest was just a social construct, a grand game of Let’s Pretend, with assigned roles, assigned identities, assigned voices, and assigned destinies.
Nobody was who they really were. Everybody was just playing a part. Hilariously, if you played your part with a lot of flare, they actually called you a “character.” Talk about irony.
It’s not just small towns, of course. These Identity Games happen everywhere. We play them at school, in our jobs, with our friends, at social events. Most especially, we play them with our families. Most most especially, we play them on social media.
We even have nice sterilized terms for them. We call them personas. We call them having a brand. Role playing has become such a ubiquitous part of our lives, we forget we’re pretending at all. We forget who we are underneath all the masks. Or, much worse, we can’t forget, because we never got the chance to find out who we really are in the first place. Some of us have been wearing masks for as long as we can remember. It was the only way we could survive.
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” — Søren Kierkegaard
So, because we’re all afraid, or were afraid when we were young and now it’s all we know, we learn to play this Identity Game with the world. We build masks for every occasion and hide ourselves behind them: masks for work, masks for social engagements, masks for love, masks for family, masks for religious services, even masks to hide from ourselves. (After all, what else is addiction but a mask to hide from your true self?) And through it all, every day, all of us ache to take the mask off. We seek connection. Something real. We want someone to see us. The real us. We crave it like we crave the air.
You can make a lot of money wearing the right mask. You can build a lot of fame. You can gain a lot of power.
But you cannot make a life.
Not a real life. Not a true life.
Masks can’t do that for you.
They can’t, because they aren’t real.
But life is real. At least, it is for the courageous.
Knowing your true self is the key to everything real about life. Real love. Real purpose. Real fulfillment. Real impact.
There are lots of people who play the Identity Game all their lives. They play it safe. They stay in the Matrix. They stay hidden. And they never actually live. They never see the astonishing wonder and beauty of the treasures locked away inside them. They never discover what they’re here for, or the vibrant power of the gift they were made to bring to the world.
“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.” — Howard Thurman
Are you ready to get real with yourself? Are you willing to find out who you really are under all those masks you’ve had to wear? Are you ready to find out why you’re actually here on the earth, to name your true purpose, and to bear the responsibility of the unique gift you have been called to bring to the world?
If so, I would love to be your partner in that good endeavor. Don’t worry. I know the way, and I’m a trustworthy guide. I’ve been doing this identity work for over 20 years.
Let’s go together.
Just drop me a line on my Connect Page, and we’ll set up a time to talk.
Your True Self is waiting.
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