All of us have different faces, which we display in different phases of our lives. We even present ourselves differently even in different parts of the day and to different people.
Let us first start with our family lives. We are enthuisiastic and energetic faces as kids and grow as rebels when we turn teenagers. We then become responsible adults and then as we grow into parenthood, we tend to forget the child in us. So, it is almost a full circle in our lives.
If we next move to the work life. We are eager learners as individual contributors as we commence our career. As we get promoted as team leaders, we tend to lose our patience and are impatient for results. We then grow as manager of mangers and thereby tend to drive looking at the rear view mirrors and are not very keen to learn from others or from the circumstances around us. Thus the face of the same employee transforms from an energetic and enthuisiastic learner to an impatient manager and finally to a conservative leader.
Of course, it is true that all of us do not change all the above ways in our personal or official lives. Some change for the better and some for the worse. Some of us learn along the way, while others falter and regress.
I think it is human to display different faces in different phases of our lives. The transformation of our faces are also normal and evolutionary. It may be worthwhile to reflect how we can adapt ourselves to the changing demand of the environs around us.
I believe all of us learn by experience. Some of us learn faster than others. It is better to display different faces in various roles of our lives and life stages than to be faceless.
I assume that if we learn to look at the mirror regularly we may learn to show a similar face under all circumstances . It may not be the same face at all times but at least similar ones. If we cannot look at the mirror ourselves regularly, we could try looking at the mirrors shown to us by our family, friends and colleagues.
Lets figure out where the mirror is and keep it clean so that the reflection helps us learn the best at all times from everyone around us.
S Ramesh Shankar