Storefront Personality

Cancer is a helluva coach.

My recovery from it has been a journey that has re-engineered not only of my body but also of my mind and soul. I've come to some profound realisations about my life and the persona I navigate it with.

?This period of convalescence has afforded me the rare opportunity to reflect deeply on what a friend calls the "Storefront Personality." It's an idea that captures the essence of how we, in an era where digital facades are as significant as our flesh-and-blood realities, meticulously curate our public selves to meet the world's expectations.

Our lives, splashed across various social media platforms, become akin to digital storefronts where we polish and present a veneer that we hope will earn us the highest emotional dividends. This veneer is our Instagram feed without the heartbreak, our LinkedIn profile without the failures, and our Twitter bio that loudly proclaims us as "thought leaders" while quietly acknowledging our insecurities.

We're all essentially salespeople in the grand marketplace of social acceptance, showcasing versions of ourselves tailored to what we believe will be most marketable. But why do we do this? For me, I think this behavior stems from primal needs - the need for acceptance, the fear of rejection, and the relentless pursuit of self-esteem.

?Our storefront personality becomes our armour, a carefully crafted fa?ade that protects our vulnerabilities from the outside world's potentially harsh judgments. It's a survival strategy, amplified in the age of social media, where perception often trumps reality, and the line between the two becomes increasingly indistinct.

However, this journey has led me to question the cost of maintaining such facades. The upkeep, not in monetary terms but in the toll it takes on our mental health, is substantial. The energy we expend maintaining the illusion of perpetual success and unblemished happiness is energy diverted from nurturing our authentic selves - selves that are perfectly imperfect, each with a unique blend of flaws and strengths.

In my reflections, particularly as someone who has navigated the advertising and tech world, I've drawn parallels with successful businesses. Those that can pivot, acknowledge missteps, and recalibrate their path forward often find lasting success. They embrace their failures as much as their successes, knowing well that authenticity fosters trust, the bedrock of any enduring relationship.

Shouldn't we, as individuals, apply the same principle to our lives? It's during this recovery, a renaissance of my being, that I've come to embrace my identity in Christ.

This idea is found in Galatians 2:20, which says, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

This scripture has been a beacon of light, guiding me to understand that my true identity isn't tied to the storefront I present to the world but is rooted in my saviour.

In Him, I find the strength to shed the facades and embrace the vulnerability of my authentic self. So maybe, whatever your faith or non-faith, it's time we shift our focus. Let's invest not in the fa?ade but in the foundation.

Let's see vulnerability not as a weakness but as a conduit to genuine connections. It's perfectly acceptable to have moments of weakness, to have a life that isn't a perpetual highlight reel. Imagine, instead of presenting a storefront, we offered a home - a place where the door is open, the mess is visible, and the warmth is tangible.

By choosing authenticity over perfection, we may discover that the aspects of ourselves we feared would alienate us from others are, in fact, what draw them closer. It's through the cracks in our armour that light shines through, as Leonard Cohen croons, revealing the true beauty of our humanity.

In embracing this shift, we might find that the most compelling story we can tell is our own, unfiltered and unabashedly true.