Saturday, January 29, 2005

The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody

The article "The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody" was originally published in the NYTimes on January 11, 2005. You can see the entire article for free here.

One of the things that occurred to me while on my trip to Cancun a couple of weeks ago is how Cancun seems to cater to the tourist that wants to go on vacation and create a "secret life". This is the way I thought of it while I was in Mexico. I used terms like "other identity" and "secret self" but it's pretty much all the same thing. The same thing seems to be what Las Vegas is building it's image around - "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas." It seems that going on vacation and creating a secret life is pretty harmless and I'd agree that for the most part it is. However, problems can arise when those secret lives go against a persons core values or promises made in their other realities (usually that the traveler will return to after the vacation). I think these are the types of secret lives that the author is referring to when they say "When exposure of a secret life will destroy or forever poison the public one, people must either come clean and choose, or risk mental breakdown, many therapists say." This is the type of article that I think can make anyone reading it take a serious look at themselves and ask "what secrets am I keeping inside that are taking a little out of me each day?" It can be scary. Sometimes the secrets are kept from oneself and sometimes they are kept from a dear loved one. Being honest with yourself seems like the first step.

No comments: