Do I really know you...

The recent and sudden passing of a close collegue left me with more questions than answers as well as a deep sadness of knowing that there is more like him among us. You see he was the kind of person who knew and was known by everybody on the floor and I'm sure in the other departments as well. He made it his business to playfully annoy people, and however hard you tried you could not ignore him, and his antics always cheered people up and made most feel better. I remember when I had suffered a loss some two years, when I got back to work he was one of the few people who came and sat with me and offered not just condolences but some advice on how to deal with the pain etc. And now to hear that he took his own life is unimaginable, because he was the kind of person you would expect to be able to deal with problems differently. As we sat and talked about how he had impacted our lives at work I couldn't help but wonder if we knew him at all, and how much did he really show os, the world. And that brings me back to the masks, sometimes we wear these masks so well it becomes difficult to separate our identity from them. Or just because people around have perceived me to be a certain way it becomes difficult for me to reveal my true self. In this case of my colleague I would guess that as we had known him as the jovial, jokster it became hard for him to be able to open up and say when he was hurting. Sometimes life casts us into a mould and we become afraid of getting out and disappointing those who know us as such, we end up developing double lives.
I am not in any way attempting to explain the psychology of suicide nor am I purporting to understand complex human behaviour and relationships. All I'm saying is sometimes the people around us,whom we interact with regularly may find themselves forced to be something they really are not in order to fit societal expectations. We too may find ourselves being pressured into behaving in a certain to please those around us, but the best one can do is to be themselves, because after all how much do I really know the next person.

As I was saying

So I wrote this amazing piece to share with you guys, happily pressed the POST button, then went my way thinking all is well. It was only when a dear friend brought that to my attention that I went in to read my blog only to be met by a blank. So here am I again desperately trying to remember the major points I had highlighted, on the upside I'm sure this will be fresher than the one I lost.

Well we were driving home from work the other day with one of my girlfriends that my mind drifted again to the issue of masks and how they are so useful at times. For example in my family and marriage I find myself to be the reserved one,such that sometimes I have to endure listwning to stories for the third and fourth time. Not that I mind really but I don't normally alert the story-teller that I have heard it before, instead I usually just nod along and laugh as heartily as the day I first heard it. Now some may say that's hypocrisy but hey we all do it at some point, tell me who can honestly say they have never gone along with some crazy idea from their loved one just because they didn't want to hurt their feelings. Those of us who are parents know all too well how satisfying it is to make your child's eyes sparkle as you go along with their schemes. It may be playing horsey with dad, when dad is dog-tired and would rather plomp in front of the TV, or having to run outside and look at that beautiful butterfly while your precious dinner is about to burn. We all know as parents we always obliging because it brings joy to the child,and yes that's pretence because you would rather be doing something. This simply shows that masks are a necessity the only problem arises when one decides to make the mask their identity,that is when instead of taking off the mask when it has served its purpose one continues to adopt the behaviour as theirs permanently. An extreme example would be when one ends up being overly permissive to anyone who demands anything of them simply because one is afraid of falling out of favour. There is a time to let people have their way even if you may not like it, sometimes you just need to put on a smiling face and oblige, hence the expressing braving it. But there is also a time to put your foot down and let people know where you stand,something I am working on by the day. On a more serious note some of us have worn masks for so long that we need to relearn who we are, and that is only possible when we go to God and let Him peel off the layers of masks we have worn so the world can accept us.