Wednesday, November 02, 2005

are you a fraud?

Do you pretend, at times, and portray yourself as someone you're not because you think that is how the people you are with would like you to be? Is your life lived behind a mask, living your whole life to the expectations of others? Are you two-faced and hypocritical, behaving one way in one setting and a completely opposite way in another?

If the answer is yes, then that's sad.

You have to live with yourself and be ok with yourself because in the end you will die with yourself. Nobody wants it written on their headstone - "Did what he thought was expected of him."

Or do they?

Wouldn't a very similar epitaph be, "Served God to the best of his ability"?

Maybe it is the correct way to live, taking a high goal and pretending that is who you are.

Or maybe it is more correct to take the high goal and strive towards changing yourself so that you reach the peak of existence rather then turning into a miserable vestige of a human being living a life that you are not prepared to lead.

Or maybe not.

I think that at the end of the day, no matter what you do or what you believe or how you act or what you wear, the important thing is to be one with yourself, to be able to look into the mirror and know the person looking back at you.

Random Thought on the rock of galilee.

4 comments:

Rolling hills of green said...

I don't mind if you look back at me too

DAG said...

Im not a fraud....I say what I believe....and IM right too

Anonymous said...

in my opinion, jews who care about living their lives according to torah and g-d's will to the best of their abilities will face this challenge at least once, if not many times, in their lives. ex: the issue of hair covering. i've often heard the excuse from women who don't cover their hair that "it's just not me! i want to feel 'at one' with myself and my observance of mitzvot and hair covering just feels so fake - it's untrue to who i am!" um, yeah. none of us were born with scarves wrapped around our hair or snoods hanging from our heads or the hair of some indian goddess plastered on. no, indeed, that ISN'T me looking out from the mirror back at me. but it's the me doing what i think g-d wants me to do. it's not comfortable and no, it's not me, but i - and many others - do it anyway.
(now, some could argue that some people will do mitzvot - like covering their hair - out of perceived social obligations or to fulfull communal expectations, but that's a whole other story for a whole other post!)

Veev said...

I love you, Sim.