I must say it is sad that in most fast food or restaurant advertisements, print or television, the sandwich or meal they portray is not one that can be purchased. In the typical hamburger ad, one will see a thick, glistening patty that is larger than the bun. You will see huge, thick slices of bacon. You will see lots of lettuce, several thick slices of tomato all piled so high that it looks as if it would never fit in your mouth. Restaurant ads show plates filled with so much food that any appetite will be satisfied. When you actually go to the place running the ad and purchase it, there is a huge difference between the truth and what is portrayed.
I have recently walked through several clothing stores looking for a lighter weight leather jacket for the fall season. There are hundreds that look like leather but few leather jackets were to be found. Some of the stores I visited don't even carry leather jackets but sell many jackets that look like leather.
Jewelry often looks like gold or silver but weighs nearly nothing and breaks with a good smack.
It seems that today life is all about imitations and impostors. For a fraction of the cost of the real thing, we can look like we adorn ourselves in expensive, high end attire. We can give off a false image of who we are, leading others to think we are someone we are not if we wish to.
Plastic looks like chrome, knock offs are everywhere, creative writing makes us believe we are getting something quite special, everything is on sale during the largest sale ever, we are told we get one free if we buy one at full price. How can any of that make sense? If every company that tells us such things was to actually do what they say, how would any of them stay in business?
Everywhere we look it is hard to find the real thing and distrust becomes a way of life. I believe little of what I see and hear if it pertains to someone trying to get me to buy something. If some ad is trying to convince me they are giving me this incredible deal out of the goodness of their heart, sorry, that does not compute. There appears to be a battle going on. They try to take your money and we try to save it. I think we are losing. I will never forget looking at purses with my wife. One very large chain store had a purse she really liked and it was on sale for 50% off. Fortunately, we did not buy it. We happened to go to another very large chain store and see the EXACT same purse at full price and that price matched the other store's 50% off price. How can it be?
People can do the same. We can dress and live in a way that portrays what we want other people to think of us. We can put an image out there that is not really us. Come on now, am I the only one who has ever pretended to be something I am not?
How many marriages go badly because the couple tries so hard and puts on a good front until after the big day? How often do we read of a scandal about people we cannot believe would do such things?
This all struck me some time ago and troubles me even today. It is becoming more and more difficult to be able to determine what is real from what is not. I began to try and change things when I realized there were consistently situations that I misled people.
Someone would ask if I wanted to do something and rather than tell them that I didn't really want to go, I would tell them I had to do this or that. The discomfort that not being truthful caused in me made me understand it was wrong. Now, if asked if I would like to do something I don't want to do, I simply reply that I don't want to. The first time I did that with a friend, they seemed shocked. But now I think people around me can expect an honest answer and are okay with the truth.
I am offering several small examples about appearances or things that are not really what they are portrayed to be. I use them to make the point that if we all lived like that, how would we ever know who we were spending time with... for real? Some call such people "posers." The movie Wild Hogs uses it a few times. Initially, the posers were the guys who lived in the suburbs, put on their expensive leather jackets, and jumped on their motorcycles to ride across the country. The bikers in the movie called them posers. The bikers viewed them as well off suburbanites trying to be bikers. Later on in the movie we come to realize that it is really the bikers who are the "posers."
I wonder if we are all posers to one degree or another. Do we all portray ourselves to be something we are not? Even a little? Maybe some of us do and some of us don't. Would it be a good thing to take a hard look at ourselves to see if there is a little bit of a poser in any of us?
Lete's take a look and if we see a little of that in us, let's make an effort to be the real deal. If we love people and if we love our families shouldn't they get the real us? If we love them and they love us, shouldn't we have some confidence they would love us even if we weren't the big shot we allow them to think we are?
Would it be a good idea to work harder on the things we are while letting the things we aren't fade away? I don't know, maybe it is a crazy thought. It doesn't mean you have to reveal all the dirty laundry. I am only suggesting we strive to be us. Actually, when I started telling my friends I just didn't want to do what they were suggesting, I felt better about me.
For all you who are in my age bracket, Popeye tried to teach us to be what we are. I would bet in ever single cartoon, he could be heard saying, "I am what I am and that's all that I am. I'm Popeye the sailor man." To which he blew his pipe adding a toot, toot.
Pretty good advice even if it was from a cartoon character. I think I will try harder to follow his lead.
Blessings, my friends.