BY HAPPY - DROP THE MASK

by Adam Harbinson

 

 

In some ways life is getting easier as I get older. I view with pity the sixty-year old women you read about who long to have babies, and while I loved, and still love all my kids and grand children - the Harby clan is growing, there's now a dozen of us - the thought of dirty nappies and squawking babies in the night is far from appealing. My two grandsons are great, and I quite like being called granda Harby, but the really nice thing about them is that somebody else wipes their bums and cleans their runny noses. Just give me a quiet corner, a couple of good books, my laptop and a crate of fine wine, and I'm as happy as a sand boy.

 

But there are other aspects of middle age life that I really enjoy too; I love people and I find relationships much less straining these days than I used to. But it's not that I think I've nothing to prove and can relax in a way that I couldn't until now. Nor is it that I have no problems, for I think - as Norman Vincent Peale used to say - problems constitute a sign of life. No, I think it's to do with honesty, for if half a century of broken relationships, failed businesses, letting friends down and being let down by them, family bereavements and a shed-load of personal problems haven't taught me something of the purpose and value of life, then it's true what they used to say about me; there's more brains in a bucket of skins.

And here in a precious nutshell is what the University of Life has taught me; the distilled wisdom of my ages. Ready? Drop the mask! You are who you are.

 

Recognise the fact that if you simply be yourself, some people will like you and some won't. That's just the way it is. The alternative is for you to construct another person, to pretend to be someone you're not, but you'll find that some people will like that other persona, and some won't. And you're back where you started again. The third option is for you to be both, but that causes fatal stress because it leads to you becoming a fractured personality, and you won't know who you are. The obvious question is, why bother? It makes so much more sense to be yourself.

 

When you accept the fact that you're not perfect, nobody is, only then can you be honest with those around you. There's nothing wrong with saying, 'Help me here. I'm struggling!' - what then happens is that you start to like yourself more, and regardless of what some websites say about me, I believe that's healthy. Why? Because Jesus said it; 'Love your neighbour as yourself' - and that means, 'as you love yourself'. No one will respect you if you refuse to respect yourself, instead, people will walk all over you - that's what happens when you make yourself a doormat.

 

But take it a little further; some people have such a low opinion of themselves that they believe they must always be doing something to persuade people to accept them. Love and acceptance are to be earned, they've been taught. And the horrible truth emerges: 'See what I'm doing for you? Am I a good son yet?' Or, 'If I try harder my husband/wife will love me more?' And the one that takes the biscuit; 'Dear God, I know I'm a pathetic Christian, but please love me, I'm trying.'

 

You need to have the courage to face the hard truth; if you're not loved and valued as a son or daughter, no amount of doing will change an unloving parent - accept it and move on. If your spouse doesn't love you even if you are a lousy cook, overweight and hopeless in bed, then nothing you can do in an effort to earn their love will have the slightest affect - they don't deserve you. And are you really a pathetic Christian? Well where did that one come from? It certainly wasn't from God, for he will never ask you to try harder. He loved you before you were born, before you had a chance to mess up. So stop trying!

 

As my old friend Terry Laverty used to say that if you are always do, do, doing, you'll end up in the Do Do.

 

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