Stripped, Yet Fully-Dressed

We put on many things that we often end up confusing these things as us.

Sometimes, it’s hard to separate our diplomas, positions, titles properties, stocks, and so on from us — that often, we fear being stripped of them, because having mistakenly equated our self-worth with our possessions and titles, we fear we would be nothing without them.

But while these are among the things that make up who we are, they are not just what we are.

The positions we hold can buy us semblance of respect — the kind that are afforded to the title, not necessarily the person who holds it. Our money can buy us those sorts of friends that scamper away as soon as we are broke. Our stocks and diplomas can give us some kind of security — one that could crumble the moment the tides start turning against us. But they can never buy us honest-to-goodness peace and happiness. They can only sow upon us discontent. And distrust.

If these are the only things with which we have clothed ourselves, then we have every reason to fear being stripped of them, because without them, we would be naked.

But the thing is, it is only after we undergo some stripping that we realize that these things we have sought to clothe ourselves with do not really matter — not in a way that what’s inside each of us matters.

 

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