Masks.

I used to think I had to pretend I had it all together. I’m not sure why I thought that, but it seems to be common.

Fake it till you make it. Put on a happy face. Don’t let them see you sweat.

Then I ended up divorced, depressed, feeling alone and friendless.

Counseling helped me figure out a few things and saved my life, to be honest. Shout out to Dr Fred Antonelli.

I learned many things along the way.

One of the most surprising things was that when you put on a happy face and fake it, you THINK you are earning the respect of people and you THINK they will like you or want to be with you but your pretense of personal infallibility is doing the opposite.

At least that is my experience.

I especially felt this pressure when I was first doing Christian radio in the 90’s. The pressure was self induced, but I thought I had to pretend I had it all together.

The 90’s version of Bill on the radio did not show emotion, or admit he was having a bad day/week/month. He didn’t share trials about his marriage or kids. It was all happy talk.

The later version of Bill on the radio was full of warts and tears and honesty. Not blubbering dramatic counseling sessions…just some truth mixed in with the music. I talked about loss and depression and divorce and failures and I learned that being honest and vulnerable gives other people the freedom to also be honest and vulnerable.

Life is a lot better when you are going through crap with other people who get it.

I don’t mean to imply I only did this on the radio. I did this in my real life, and finally my real life was the same as my radio life.

I am also definitely not saying go dump your personal stuff on Facebook!

Start with one friend that you can trust.

We don’t have to fake it. We don’t need to see your happy face, if it’s fake.

It’s ok to let us see you sweat now and then.

We sweat too.