Masks

There is a mistake that everybody makes.

The presumption that they are always correct and everybody else is wrong.

It's hidden under a mask called "self-confidence".

....

Throughout my life I never had much. Slowly, in the recent years, I meet truly humble people and unparalleled boastful people. It's only now when I start to compare; where is my place in humanity?

The more I see the world, the more I feel smalled. Like a child that has always been swimming in a swimming pool, thrown to speculate the size of the ocean.

HOW MUCH AM I WILLING TO SACRIFICE TO ATTAIN MY GOALS?

In fact...

What is my goal?

I tell this to everybody who asks me this question:
First and foremost, to make sure that when I'm at the end of my life, I can look back, smile and tell myself that I have no regrets.

... that I can tell that I have impacted the world in some way...

... that I can touch my heart and say that I did everything conscionable...

... that I can close my eyes and know that when I open them again, I will be able to give a full and justifiable report; a report that would make my Father smile and say, 'well done'.

Yes.

It's vague. Seriously, it's so sweeping that it makes "goals" seem really out of context.



Some people say that I'm doing too much work.
Some people say that I'm doing too little work (compared to their time).

I feel that no work is too much for me if there is something inside it for me to learn.
(As quoted from my Shi Fu: Fu Ying)

An ex-good friend of mine told me this:
"You treat everybody as stepping stones, being close to them when you need them and discarding them like rubbish when you don't"."

It gave me pause to a scathing conversation that I was having with him.

It scared me.

Have I become such a monster?

Have I become so ruthless, have I become like the people that I hate in the first place?

Over the years, I've learnt never to trust anybody except myself. It's what gives me strength, knowing that as long as I don't delegate "trust" to anybody, I can never fail Me.



... Nobody really knows who is the real me.

Nobody knows because I don't want anybody to know.
For people who think they know me, they merely know what I want them to know about me.

Dig as they might, they will not find beyond what I want them to know about me.

I'm a person who has put on so many masks in my life that I've forgotten which is my real face anymore.

If you think you see Andrew as intelligent and hardworking - It's what I want you to think
If you think you see Andrew as slow and lazy - It's what I want you to think

If you think Andrew is pious and filial - It's what I want you to think
If you think Andrew is hedonistic and unfilial - It's what I want you to think

It's in this moments when I flash a mask over my face, so quickly that sometimes, I don't notice it myself.

... at this moment, when I look back at my self-defense mechanisms, I scare myself.
I scare myself because sometimes, when you put on mask, you cannot take it off without consequences.



Without consequences.



Even in the stifling office, with nobody around me, I'm still putting on a mask.

There are piles of tapes and papers around me, giving an illusion that I'm swamped.

I'll never really get out of this cycle.



If you really want to be close to me, you'll have to accept that you'll never really know the true me. You can tear off as many masks that I have, but there will always be one underneath to replace it.
... Because I've forgotten which one is my original face.