Ahmad Al Charif

                        Still from the 2006 film “Behind the Mask”

Who are you? Where do you come from? And why are you reading this?

I often wonder about the people behind these numbers i see in the stats. Individuals, random souls stumbling upon this page one way or another. And i cannot help but smile.

I smile because even though i do not necessarily “know you” in the traditional sense, you have indeed come to know me intimately. My deepest thoughts, are out here for you to read, and ponder.

The world we live in, is a paradox of contradictory things, technology being no different. A tool some use to reach out, is someone else’s safe distance: to connect and observe without really being seen, felt, or even heard.

But i often wonder about this; and not just when it comes to this blog, but also in my day to day routines. Why?

Why do so many people, appear to be a carbon copy of someone else?

Bear with me for a moment, i will elaborate.

When i go to the bank, and this is just an example, most employees behave a certain way, talk with a certain mannerism. Even the way they look at you. It is custom tailored, installed, and launched to use.

Why?

What happened to the person within? Do they still exist? Are they any different outside the workplace?

“Of course they are!” I imagine you responding back, “it is a work place and people need to maintain a certain level of professionalism”, and so on and so forth.”

I get that, i really do. But i strongly believe that there is a line we are crossing. That somewhere along the way, all this filtering of our emotions, of the way we express ourselves, all this censorship and “refinement” started to cost us dearly. We start to loose sense of who we really are.

We keep people out, because we are asked to be someone we are not, trained accordingly, and hired to this effect.

But we loose so much in this process, it really pains me.

The average person spends 9 hours at the work place. There are 24 hours in a day. If you subtract another 9 hours for sleep (which based on my reading is around what the average person needs) you are left with 6 hours left. 6 hours to commute, eat, do your groceries, run your chores, and again so on and so forth.

By my calculations; and if you are very efficient, you are left with no more than 4 hours a day, to be free. To express yourself, to be all that is you want to be.

That is nowhere near enough. And it is a shame.

We build so many walls in the real world, as a way of life that we end up subconsciously erecting walls of our own. Keeping everyone out.

But we are not solitary creatures. And such a life cannot be a happy one.

Get out. Offer what you have to the world. Find a way to be yourself, while maintaining the professional aura. With your clients, your boss, your colleagues. With everyone. Find a better balance.

As of today, start pushing back those walls. They are suffocating you, and you deserve more than 4 hours a day of being you.

You do.

❤