I had trouble writing Chapter 3 this morning. I got my allotted writing time in but it was more writing just to write rather than really saying something. Ever have moments like that? You speak just to fill the silence or you clean the house just so you don't have to think about a pressing issue or you shop simply because you'd rather spend money than confront the real drama in your life? Well, this morning, I was writing to fill in the time I'd allotted for my writing. It's a good exercise in discipline but it doesn't leave me feeling very accomplished.
Chapter 3 is about walking on eggshells. It's about why so many of us live our lives pretending, trying to be and say the right things all of the time. I wrote about blunt people the other day and it seems like on one side of the spectrum are the blunt people who use their 'realness' as a cover and, yet, on the opposite side of the spectrum are the people pleasers who live their lives walking on eggshells, trying to be everyone to everything.
I once had someone say to me, "Kass, you're not that nice." I still can't quite figure out why those words resound with me as much today as they did the first moment I heard them but I think it has something to do with this walking on eggshells thing. Everyone has a desire to be liked, appreciated or approved of and there's nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong with feeling like you need to be anything other than who you are in order to be accepted. On some level, we all have felt that but in writing this chapter, I'm trying to figure out how I hit home the point that we don't do anybody favors by pretending to be anything other than who we really are. It doesn't improve anyone's quality of life to live a lie or to pretend to be who you're not... but how do you unlearn that? How do you tell someone to stop faking it? How do you give someone the tools they need to take off the mask they've worn for so long? That's what I'm trying to figure out in this chapter...
Hmmm....
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