Waiting for Permission
I distinctly remember the last time I consciously waited for someone to give me permission to be myself on the job. It was in 1997, when I had just started what I thought at that time was my "dream job," and I was afraid of being less than polished enough, less than cosmopolitan enough. Too vocal, too rough around the edges, not political enough -- I was afraid of being found lacking and being jettisoned as a result. The "go along to get along" approach.
I find this theme pretty consistently wherever people are pretending to be something they are not. Afraid of driving away the lover. Afraid of offending the in-laws. Worried about fitting in at church or the new job or with a new (or even old) friend. Fearful of loss in general.Fear, fear, fear, that old scoundrel, FEAR. I have mused in many entries here on what a soul sucker/life killer fear is.
A key component of this theme that drives pretense and inauthenticity is control, too. Control by someone else. It isn't until people are afraid of loss because someone else controls the outcome that prevarication becomes a way of life. I would hazard a guess that it's not just the spies plying their espionage trade that lead double lives. I would wager that anywhere a life is awash in fear and a lack of control one will find falsehoods and guises. I also think long-term exposure to this kind of miasma will change a person into the falsehood they pretend to be. What a tragedy.
While I do not question the REASONS for waiting for permission to be one's self, I would argue vocally that doing so does nothing but postpone the inevitable. At best one just delays exposing the True Self, for better or worse. And at worst, If I hold my tongue until I feel it is safe to no longer do so, will I have become something -- some ONE -- I don't want to be? What shaping and directive control of my essence do I give away any time I pretend to like something I don't, pretend to care when I do not, pretend to feel what I do not?
While I have made huge strides in owning my own Self in an exterior sense (on the job, in public at large), I find I'm still ruled by fear on the inside. I edit myself to get along with friends. I filter and squash or dampen longings or frustrations so I can pick my battles with my spouse. I tell myself it's part of the social contract I made to share my life with these people. My Inner Unabomber doesn't deserve to rule every day in my life, so I make concessions in order to coexist in the longer term with someone other than myself for company. I tell myself it's my way of keeping at least the appearance of control over my life, that I do this by choice. And that's usually an acceptable exchange. But my concerns remain the same: will I know when the person I truly am slips away and I become the thing I've been pretending to be?