No need to multi-mask: Life Hacks with Charles Assisi

We all assume different personas, as a survival hack. How else would we deal with the world? I’m trying a new way: a whole self, honest, intact.

Most people carry around more than one version of themselves.

Deux Tetes (Two Heads) by Karel Appel; 1953. (Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York)

There’s a version that goes to work, knows how to sound agreeable at meetings, and says things like “Interesting point” when they disagree.

There’s the version that attends family events, knows what not to say, laughs politely, and smiles on cue for photographs.

And then there’s the version we are when no one else is watching. When one is finally done explaining, nodding, and pretending to always be okay.

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