Faced with the intense drama and cattiness inherent to working with a couple dozen teenage girls, my high school cheerleading coach once instilled in us the mantra, “Fake it till you make it.” To clarify, she wasn’t encouraging us to be in-genuine versions of ourselves, but to leave our drama at the door and treat each other with respect in order to focus on the task at hand: cheerleading.
This mantra has followed me through many (often more consequential) stages of my life, sometimes bearing different names, but always the same message. “Be the better person,” my high school biology teacher said. “She’s politically savvy,” my college student government advisor said, when a fellow student leader complained that I was being publicly nice to someone who was known to challenge every point made on the senate floor. Regardless of what it was called, this idea of suppressing my emotions in the interest of saving face and accomplishing the goal dangling in front of me was one that became almost second nature through two decades of education and the start of my professional life.
In all honesty, I still believe in the value of this message and agree that there are many situations that require putting emotions on the back burner in order to accomplish a task. And let’s face it, sometimes it’s just plain uncomfortable to put your feelings on the table, especially in a professional context. I’m also known to preach the idea that if you’re unhappy with a part of your life, a personal shift in attitude (from “My job isn’t helping anyone,” to “I’m able to play a small role in helping people through my customers who are helping people,”) can go a long way in improving your daily life.
What becomes dangerous, however, is when you fake it so much that you fool yourself into ignoring the problems that you’re censoring. When you suppress thoughts, feelings, and frustrations so much that you’re almost convinced that they don’t exist, it’s inevitable that those feelings will find their way to the surface when you least expect them to, and often in the most unexpected ways. Maybe you become so internally stressed that you get sick, or maybe withholding stress in one part of your life causes you to be irritable in other parts of your life. Or maybe, like me, you’ll suppress so much in so many parts of your life that, like an emotional Jack-in-the-Box, you wind yourself so tight that you finally explode.
We will always find times in our lives where it’s easier and maybe even necessary to suck it up and keep moving forward. Do yourself a favor, though, and make sure that you (excuse the cliche) stay true to yourself. Find a way to vent your frustrations in a safe, healthy way. Write them down in a journal, scream them into a pillow, vent over drinks with your friends, or use them as motivation at the gym. You may choose to hide your feelings on the outside for one reason or another, but when it comes to taking that daily look in the mirror that is your mental health and personal needs, don’t you fake it.
-Jasmine LaBine, who is not a faker