Summer is a great time to just surf TV, sometimes ending up on a guilty pleasure like Dr. Phil.  Today’s show was about a woman who lived in this beautiful 9000 sq. ft. home with beautifully manicured lawns and gardens.  And on the inside, a nightmare of piles and piles of stuff gathered over the years by this woman who was obsessed with holding on to things.  On the outside you would never have known, but hidden on the inside, a mess.

I think a lot of people are like that, a mess on the inside but trying to make it look good on the outside.  Take Facebook for instance.  Most of the stuff people put on there are all the great things going on in their lives, all smiles, selfies with their make-up and hair all perfect, making it look like they haven’t got a care in the world.  What would it look like it we put up pictures of what we looked like when we got out of bed in the morning instead?  Scary thought, huh? What if Facebook reflected what was happening on the inside as well?

Imagine pictures of your kids having hissy fits instead of all dressed up in their finest for posed pictures.  Or maybe a picture with your spouse after you’ve had an argument instead of on a date.  And wouldn’t it be funny to see all the things that went wrong on your vacation instead of what went right?

So why do we do this?  We all have bad days or skeletons in our closets and vices of one kind or another.  We’re human beings after all.  That’s why I often wonder why we hold certain people to higher standards than others, like teachers or politicians or even religious leaders.  Just the fact that we’re all human means we’re imperfect, so why are we surprised when one of these people ends up having some ugly underneath the surface?  Well it’s obviously because they’ve been hiding behind a facade, a Facebook appropriate image that everyone expects but that nobody can really maintain.

Now I’m not saying there aren’t people in the world where what you see is what you get, but they seem to fewer and far between nowadays.  I for one appreciate honesty, even if it’s something uncomfortable.  Like a parent of mine at school who is dealing with cancer treatments, sharing the good and the bad.  Or another friend who daily shared her grief journey after her husband passed away.  And yet another has shared his struggles with PTSD. I learn from these people and get to know them better as human beings and not just the images they post on social media.  I see courage, perseverance, and just plain grit from people who are going through difficult life experiences.  I learn from people who are willing to share experiences of stepping out of their comfort zones to encourage the rest of us to give things a try.

But in our world today, honesty is hard.  Everyone is so judgmental and intolerant that it takes real courage to share who you are, what you believe and things you may be dealing with.  Sometimes people you thought were your friends close the door in your face because it might be embarrassing to say they know you.  The chances of getting hurt are pretty high and so all we show or see are the safe facades that everyone can deal with.  Maybe your life is perfect and you can be holier than thou and judge others for being human, but I know I shouldn’t because I’m far from being perfect.  That doesn’t mean I don’t judge and I’m ashamed to say that, but it’s honest.  I need to remember that it’s not my job to judge or try to change others.  My only job is to love others, despite their flaws.

In my own life I work hard to control the external because sometimes the internal is pretty ugly and depressing and let’s face it, nobody wants to see that.  It’s something I’m working on because as I get older, I’m learning to love and forgive myself so that maybe one day, my external and internal will be the same.