It occurs to me that, perhaps, I should spend less time trying to measure and figure out others and more time bringing the surface-level veneer that I wear more inline with steady flowing trickle of hope that keeps this ship afloat.
In my experience of life on the streets, honesty is a rare and precious quality seldom found in society or in the church. Like the alcoholic who denies he has a drinking problem, many of us have been deluding ourselves for so long that dishonesty and self-deception have become an accepted way of life. The esse quam videri (to be rather than to seem to be) of Saint Gregory Nazianzen has be so convoluted that “seeming to be” becomes the common denominator of ordinary behavior , pretense and sham comprise enough to get by, pious thoughts replace putting on an apron and washing dirty feet, and in the words of Carl Jung, “neurosis is always an adequate substitute for suffering.”
-Brennan Manning, from REFLECTIONS FOR RAGAMUFFINS, Pp.188
m e a n d e r s 
It is so difficult to learn to live authentically. Once we learn to live without pretenses, life becomes much more simple. It is no longer necessary keep all the balls in the air.