"Esse Quam Videri"

I figure that if I'm going to name my blog a Latin phrase, I probably should give some sort of explanation as to what it means. I'll attempt to get my point across on this, although I'm pretty sure what I type won't be nearly as good as the way it makes sense in my head. I wish my professors understood that!

Do you ever feel that the person that you appear to be to others isn't who you really are? I know it's true for me, and I'm beginning to realize more and more that many people experience this. As I interact with people, whether at school, at work (I work in the home theatre department of my local Best Buy), or with my friends, I feel too often that I put on a mask so that others won't see my imperfections. A quick example. Tonight I was working, and a guy called in because an employee had given him false information about a tv's capabilities. I was left to grovel and try to make things better, but this guy was absolutely closed to any sort of solution to make up for our mistake. He became somewhat beligerent, using profanity to get his point across. Now, in my head I was conjuring up my own bit of vocabulary that I would have liked to use on him. I so badly wanted to just chew him out and tell him exactly how I was feeling, but instead kept it all inside and was relatively cordial (probably a good choice).

When I'm with friends and family I think I appear to be quite a straight arrow. But my inner self is so far from it. Who I am when I'm by myself is quite different than the apparently ever-smiling person I am in public.

The term "esse quam videri" suggests bringing into allignment who you are and who you appear to be. The literal translation is "to be rather than to seem." Another way of putting it is "what you see is what you get." Now, I don't think this means that I need to wear on my sleeve all my imperfections and feelings of inadaquacy. In fact, I don't think I should change what I appear to be at all, because I quite like the person I portray. Rather, I want to actually become the person I seem to be. I want to progress to the point where nothing I think, say, or do while by myself would be disappointing to those I'm close to. I want to be somebody who is genuinely kind, ambitious, bright, organized, etc.--not just in the way I act--but in who I am.

One also could really like their inner self, but then struggle when standing up for those values when put under negative pressure from friends or difficult situations. I've met so many people who are genuinely good people, yet struggle to represent that in their actions.

I understand that this a lofty goal. In all reality, I know that I'll never, in this life, progress to the point of being exactly who I want to be. However, I think it's the process of actively striving for it that adds character, and it's that character that I really desire.

Man, it really is hard to explain what I'm thinking. This idea has been incubating in my brain for a few weeks, and what seems to have hatched on this blog is quite an ugly duckling.

Think of what "esse quam videri" means to you. Take inventory of your life regarding those things that aren't in allignment with who you want to really become. And in the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

The movie "Ghost" is on, with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg. Classic. But those devil shadow things that take people off to Hell are really silly. Kind of disturbing, but moreso just funny.