The real me

Today I am asked to consider what 'false selfs' I present to those who meet me. The people I work and live with, and occasionally socialise with.

I guess there is a false 'me' in every one. We keep a smile when inside we are crying; we arrive looking and sounding confident when we have taken an age to pluck up courage to even attend.

There are so many masks that we present to even the closest to us. Sometimes we let it slip and others see who we really are... And rarely condemn us for allowing them to witness the real person. 

For many people the mask we present to others is not to do with deception it is to do with self preservation - or at least our complex psychology would tell us that. We inwardly justify that unrepresentative exterior in the name of not wanting to be judged for being authentic. But how real is that?

When I think of the many people I know - and many of them I have got to know the 'real' person as we have shared our journeys together - every one of them I have appreciated more fully as I have got to know them better. As I see the authentic person behind the mask there is something that draws me in. Why? Because reality is always better than fiction!

When I look at my own life then, with it's 'falsehoods', exterior confidence and eternal optimism there is a sense that for some of the time these are not the real me.For to show the real me, to those I lead particularly, would undermine my leadership... 

Who am I kidding? Only myself, because if I lead from a falseness it is not leadership at all, it is deception. So the mask must not be put on the real self must be evident at all times as we meet those we will today.