Coming Out Of the Shell

'Instead of shame and dishonour, you will enjoy a double share of honour. You will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.' Isaiah 61:7 One of the things I realized as being the reason why I hide my true self and opt for a airbrushed version is because I have a perfectionism mentality. I tend to want things to be 110% perfect otherwise not at all, and that is mostly things pertaining to my daily life. So I find myself choosing to hide the real self and present what I think is the perfect version, which off course is far from the truth as obviously that is a fake self, mostly because I assume people won't accept the imperfect me. *phlaah* A case in point is opening my house to outsiders, by which I mean people who are not part of my inner circle, family and close friends. Apart from being a zealous perfectionist I’m also a very private person, who finds it hard to let my guard down and invite people into my inner space, but that is a topic for another day. So being overtly private means I’m careful who I allow to scrutinize my personal life or invade my personal space and that includes coming into my house, because I always feel like I do not measure up to most people so I would rather stay out of their way. I’m realizing though that is foolishness because I am a unique individual with peculiar traits only I can exhibit, and trying to measure up to everyone does not help my cause, but instead makes me strive for a washed out version, which is not what God made me to be. Spending time looking for people’s approval has made me miss the important point which is that everyone has a path carved out by God and everyone is equipped differently for that path, so trying to invent a persona that people “will like” is choosing to ignore my uniqueness and try to be somebody else.