Is easy. And if not, it is easier.
Savvy is the master of faces. Telling what one wants or maybe needs to hear. Constantly metamorphosing into the right face of circumstance. Some may describe it as flexibility or name it social intelligence. Some are deluded into believing that it is the way to save relationships and build likeness. No matter how shiny the description, it still is living behind a set of public selves and witnessing one’s memory of his self, the real one, fade away.
What effects will be born by that same relationship that we meant to save when the masks fall (because they will)? How many people – including ourselves – do we think we can fool and for how long? What about the future when the knit threads uncover a network hanging in the airs of fakeness? What about when what we don’t say matters so much more to what happens next? How many times have we thought and believed in one direction and casted our vote in another? How many times have we held our silence in places where what we witnessed would have made tremendous difference had we spoken up? How many crimes, how many injustices, how many ethics were buried with the particular face of circumstance? How many families, how many friendships, how many companies, how many plans and how many dreams?
Till when? Till what threshold? What is an acceptable loss?
So what other choice do we have? The hard one. The harder one for sure. That of being ourself. Our real self no matter the circumstance. Unlike what most assume, this and being clever enough to know how to deliver the message while assuming the responsibility of the way the message is delivered are not at all mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they come together and are among the true constituents of social intelligence, the kind that builds strong long-term relationships.
My grandfather once told me that he who is true needs not his memory. Suzan Scott in Fierce Conversations says that what is said and how it is said determines what happens next. Or won’t. Brilliant lessons from both!
So?