Don't be fooled!

I'd like to share this with the board members enjoy!

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Don’t be Fooled

Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the mask I wear. For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks. Masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don’t be fooled. I give the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, that the waters are calm, and that I’m in command, and I need no one. But don’t believe it. Please don’t. My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask. Beneath lays no smugness. Beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in loneliness. But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness being exposed. That’s why I create a mask to hide behind, to help me pretend. To shield me from the Glance that knows. I’m afraid that you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh, and that your laugh will kill me. I’m afraid that deep down inside I’m nothing. That I’m just no good, and that you’ll see and reject me.

So I play my games, my desperate pretending games, with the façade of assurance on the outside, and a trembling child within. And so my life becomes a front. I idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talk, I tell you everything that’s really nothing. Nothing of what’s crying within me. So when I’m going through my routine, don’t be fooled by what I’m saying. Please listen carefully, and try to hear what I am not saying, what I would like to be able to say. What for survival I need to say, but I can’t say. I dislike the hiding. Honestly I do. I dislike the superficial phony games I’m playing. I’d really like to be genuine. I’d really like to be genuine, spontaneous, and me.

Can you help me? Help me by holding out your hand, even when that’s the last thing I seem to want or need. Each time you’re kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding, I can make it. You can breathe life into me. It will not be easy. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. But love is stronger than strong walls, and therein lies my hope.

Please try to take down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands, For a child is very sensitive, and I am a child. Who am I you may wonder? I am someone you know very well, I am every man, every woman, every child, every human you meet.

(pg, 129 The Power Principle, author: Blaine Lee)

> I'd like to share this with the board
> members enjoy!
Thnaks Duane:

"To be honest,as this world goes,
Is to be one man picked out of ten
thousand."-Shakespeare,Hamlet,II,ii

"If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people."-
Virginia Woolf.
The Moment and Other Essays,1952

"Being entirely honest with oneself is a
good exercise."-Sigmund Freud,
letter to Wilhelm Fliess, Oct. 15,1897

Don't throw pearls to swine...many people
don't care about who you really are and those
who do usually have a honest way of letting you know it....

You can learn alot about a person by just
listening and observing...

Hi Sandy,

Sometimes being honest, is the hardest thing to do no matter, how "noble" or right it may be.

Duane

> Thnaks Duane:

> "To be honest,as this world goes,
> Is to be one man picked out of ten
> thousand."-Shakespeare,Hamlet,II,ii

> "If you do not tell the truth about
> yourself
> you cannot tell it about other
> people."-
> Virginia Woolf.
> The Moment and Other Essays,1952

> "Being entirely honest with oneself is
> a
> good exercise."-Sigmund Freud,
> letter to Wilhelm Fliess, Oct. 15,1897

> Don't throw pearls to swine...many people
> don't care about who you really are and
> those
> who do usually have a honest way of letting
> you know it....

> You can learn alot about a person by just
> listening and observing...

Yes honesty is hard especially if we are
seeking others approval...Sometimes you
have to "be who you are" and let the chips
fall where they may...The key is to discern
when it is wise and necessary to do so and
which situations deserve it....

Honesty does not always mean bearing your soul
to the world...

Honesty is worthy of contemplation...

Sometimes I ask: "is this the battle worth
dying for?"
At some point we all have our moment of
truth...