A Mask Won’t Hide Your Nakedness
A toymaker in a small village makes free toys for all the children who live there.
This gesture brings great joy to children and their parents.
He is very talented.
The toys are beautiful but fragile.
They break easily.
When this happens, the children get sad and depressed.
They cry for long hours and will not be consoled until their toys are fixed.
The toymaker charges a fee for each repair, putting the parents in a difficult position.
They are caught in a web from which they cannot escape.
They suspect the toymaker made the toys fragile so they can break easily.
He has created a strong demand for his services and earns handsome profits.
The children are excited because the toys return with new features.
They talked among themselves and would even deliberately break their toys to get them fixed.
The more times the toys visited the toy shop, the better they worked.
When I think of this story, I think that we are like the toys.
But we belong to the parents instead.
We are not carried away by the excitement of getting upgrades.
Our focus is more on the cost implications and the politics of it all.
For that reason, many people are stuck in version 1.0.
Some of us will get only a couple of upgrades in our entire lives.
Sometimes, it is because we are too scared to get broken.
At other times, it is because we can not afford the upgrade or are unwilling to pay for it.
We are in different phases of our becoming.
Most people are still of a rudimentary functioning.
A few are quite proficient in their functioning.
Everyone we meet is a different version from the last time we met.
When we meet again, it will be a different version.
Humans are like applications that are caught in an unending loop of updates.
The people we meet and the experiences that we have tighten or loosen some screws.
We need so many upgrades because we are not perfect. We have never been. We will never be.
It doesn’t matter what we say to ourselves in front of our mirrors or how well we dress.
We will eternally remain deficient.
But is this a problem? No!
It has never been a problem. It will never be a problem.
It’s a good thing.
It’s an opportunity to learn, grow, improve, thrive, and become.
But you see, there’s one little problem.
Growth is uncomfortable.
It feels like pulling apart the broken toy to fix and upgrade it.
It feels vulnerable and painful for a person to subject themselves to new learning and systems.
When we get tired of living with our failures, we throw on a mask, hoping it will make it all better.
But a mask is like makeup.
Brush over deep underlying scars and ugliness and make magic.
Out of the most unfortunate physical imperfections, great beauty will emerge.
This is quite a common practice these days.
But it does not fix anything.
Problems persist.
For some people, they are never addressed.
We live in a world of masks. Everyone has several of those. Some more than the others. Trust me when I say this, but there’s nothing wrong with having or putting on masks.
The problem here is that masks will only cover the face.
There’s a lot of attention on the face.
People love faces. It shows your authentic self; we can see when you are happy from the smile around your lips. We can tell that you are sad from the hurt in your eyes.
But more often than not, we would rather our vulnerabilities remain unknown.
So the more people try to read our faces like a book, the more we try to hide them from them.
Scarves, sunshades, and hats all perform the same functions.
Simple, everyday disguises we employ to look a little different.
Yet the emphasis isn’t really on anything else but the face.
So we cover it up. Like an ostrich that buried its head in the ground, leaving its gargantuan body exposed and vulnerable.
But what is wrong with being vulnerable?
In my opinion, vulnerability comes from a place of inadequacy.
You are not vulnerable by choice. It is not a decision you make.
It is a stark reality of your life. All is not well.
What we consider being vulnerable is an admittance of a situation that clearly exists.
Think of it this way.
To get treated by a doctor, you must surrender to them, exposing your wounds, feelings and nakedness to them.
It is a prerequisite for the service you require from them.
If you open up, you get help.
More like the toys in our story.
To get the best upgrades, you have to strip them down.
It is the hardest thing in the world. To admit publicly that the picture-perfect smiles you splash across social media are only a mask, hiding many deep hurts.
What do we do with these masks? Keep them or lose them?
What use is your mask if you are stark naked?
Rip it off.
Begin again.
Learn new things.
Unlearn useless things.
If you need a useful resource, search the internet, or watch free videos on YouTube.
But if your vulnerability comes from not having enough finances to live your dream, worry no more.
It can be fixed.
A high-income skill can still be learned in weeks.
You can reverse your situation quickly if you want to go all the way.
There are endless resources, and they are free.
But if you are willing to spend a bit for a system that works and does most of the work for you,
is a good place to start.
It is a free training. If you like what you hear, then make a decision for yourself. I will place the link at the end of this story so you can check it out.
Is this a guarantee that your life will change if you learned something new today?
Absolutely not.
Don’t overthink it.
Some things may work for you. Other things will not.
The more you try, the faster you find that there’s a place for you in this world, where you do not need to wear masks.
Where it is okay to rip off what is no longer rewarding you and build something new.
You will learn, as I have, that you will breathe more easily and that everything will align for your good.
In time, you will learn to become the toymaker.
You will fix yourself.
You will become a beacon.
You will fix others.
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