You’ve heard it before. We all wear masks. We all hide our “true” selves way down deep inside where no one else can see, where no one else can …
hurt us.
love us.
make us cry.
make us care.
What you might not have heard of, or thought of, are the masks other people make us wear. Masks that force us to …
fit in.
conform.
deny reality.
accept things we don’t want to…
Next time you see someone who causes you distress, whether it be in the form of angst, fear, or pity, try to see the mask. Try to see what is beyond it.
It’s an old saying, that someone wears many hats. Not one we use much anymore.
Perhaps we should.
In today’s world, so many of us are unhappy with who or what we are, and we don’t know what to do about it.
Perhaps we just need to put on another hat. Try something different, be someone different.
Actors use costumes to change roles, we shouldn’t we? Is it any less valid if we do it?
I think not. Look at Police Officers, Firefighters, Doctors … Try to imagine them acting that way at home all the time. You know they don’t. They all put on costumes and become different people when they go to work.
We can’t we put on costumes when we go home? Become someone we want to be, act in a way that makes us happy.
We don’t even need a whole costume.
Sometimes all it takes is a hat….
We all have these fantasies about how romantic something is. A moonlit beach. A secluded swimming pool. A private waterfall.
Sometimes we even manage to arrange to get to one of the coveted spots, whiling away hours imagining what it will be like once we get there.
Oh, the Romance! How wonderful it will be!
But the romance is in us. If we don’t bring it to those places, those places can’t bring it out in us.
Then those places can be worse than a ‘regular’ place.
There is nothing romantic about a lonely beach in the moonlight. A person swimming solo under the waterfalls. Midnight laps, alone, in a swimming pool.
The most romantic things of all, are those that are the most lonely—experienced when you’re with someone you love…
Sometimes, when we go looking for treasure, we find it. It’s just not always what we were looking for.
Sometimes it’s better.
The trick is to have an open mind and recognize a treasure when we find it.
And to be brave and smart enough not to be stymied by the chest itself.
Sadness comes from within, not from without.
The world doesn’t feel, doesn’t care.
We do.
The moon looks down upon upon us, but truly, it is blind. It does not see, does not care, does not think of us.
How could it? How many times would its heart have been broken by now? Even the happy endings have endings.
After a couple of billion endings, the moon wouldn’t be interested any more.
The sun sets whether we want it to or not, and brings an end to our best days and our worst indifferently. Then it rises and forces a new day upon us.
The stars twinkle merrily in the sky at night. Or do they? Perhaps they twinkle coldly.
It’s all in how we see it, how we perceive it, how we color our world.
The deepest sadness comes from within, for there is no sadness without.
But the deepest sadness comes from the place where the deepest happiness bubbles up from. For there is no happiness without either, only within.
When you look at the cold moon, you can choose to look at a lover’s moon instead.
When you watch the sun sink into the dark, you can choose to see it as the beginning of the night, not the end of the day.
When the stars twinkle down upon you, it is your happiness that makes them sparkle.
Leave the sadness where it lies, it can’t come out into the world anyway. It doesn’t exist out here, only within you.
We all need our time in the sun.
It could be a private, stolen moment. Just enough time to do a little happy dance.
Time to be you, without anyone there to judge you, to make you worry about what you look like, what you are doing – or anything really.
Just a quiet little personal moment you can fill with your own squeal of happiness.
A little jump for joy.
A little victory.
A sigh of relief.
A moment.
In the sun.
That look you get when you know she is waiting for you to do something.
But you don’t know what it is.
She is expecting … something. But what?
Is now the time to kiss her? Did she say something witty, and you didn’t catch it? Did you say something stupid and not realize it?
Hurry up!
That look only lasts a moment, then it’s gone forever.
That look can change everything, forever. And how you respond, or don’t, will decide how it changes.
Hurry up!
The problem is, we don’t all know how to do it.
Some of us learn very early, and very well, that there are consequences to be paid.
Some of these are obvious, and some are not.
Some you carry with you, some are put upon you by others.
Sometimes, when you want to be bad, you have to find someone who will let you. Someone who will help you. Someone who won’t hold it against you later.
Would you be that someone?
Is being that someone being bad, too?
You know when you want something? I mean really, really want something?
You daydream about it. You long for it. You think about it, you obsess over it.
It will never own you more than it does at that moment, when you don’t own it at all.
Once you have it, the dream starts to fade.
Once you have it, the magic starts to go away.
Once you have it, you start to notice other things you want really, really badly…