See it as it is...

People lie.

We lie.

We lie to our bosses, our colleagues, our friends, our families, our loved ones, about ourselves.

Sometimes, we even lie to ourselves, about ourselves.

We tell ourselves we're good, we're great, we're wonderful. And we tell that to ourselves very loudly, in order to drown the soft small voice in our hearts that disagree with us.

We perform acts of charity to show ourselves and the world that we're really nice, caring people who make the world a better place. We tell ourselves that what we do are acts of sacrifice for other people. But what we really want is some form of validation because we don't love ourselves enough.

And so, we boast, we brag, we perform, we promote, we advertise, we aggrandize, we fake, we crow, we flaunt, we exaggerate.

We tell ourselves that we'll be perfect and our lives will be so much more glamourous and exciting, if only our thighs are that slimmer, our breasts bigger, our noses sharper, our lips poutier.

We think that we'll be all the better off with the right clothes and shoes and handbags and jewellery. We don on make-up and tease our hair to incredible shapes to be that someone we've always wanted to be, that someone who is everyone else but ourself.

We hide. We dare not speak up. We're apologetic about our own ideas and our own opinions and who we are. And so, we downplay ourselves in our interactions with people, professionally and socially.

We change and adjust ourselves to please everybody and end up not pleasing anybody at all, hating ourselves and losing our identities, our personalities in a chameleon-like display of all the conceivable colours and textures that we know of, that is however as fleeting and as unsubstantial as the pretty but washed-out colours of a rainbow on a rainy day.

And all because we don't think that we're not good enough, for the job, for the partner, for the world, and we try to possess things and do the things to make ourselves 'good enough'.

And so, we devalue, we undermine, we cheapen, we debase, we bemean, we diminish, we ruin.

And we pendulate between the two extremes, alternating between hating ourselves and narcissism.

The truth.

We need to see ourselves for who and what we really are. To remove the trappings we hide behind to see and recognise ourselves for ourselves. Without inflating and exaggerating our talents and gifts, and without devaluing our real and true worth as well.

With the truth, we can then make something out of ourselves, something which is not built on illusion or delusion.

With the truth, our self worth and self knowledge does not change every minute of every day with the turning and the shifting of like the reflective and shimmery surfaces of a coloured globe that is the world we now live in.

With the truth, we are finally no more living an endless life of lies, doing what we cannot and don't like doing, and being a stranger to our loved ones and ourselves.

No more thinking more highly of oneself than one really is. No more self-flagellation either. See it as it really is.

I know that this will break me
I know that this might make me cry
I know that this will hurt me
And break my heart and soul inside
But I don't wanna live this lie

I want the truth
Give me the truth
Even if it hurts me

I was blind
But now I see

"The Truth", Good Charlotte