Looking beyond the gloss

In my younger days, I was utterly besotted by good looks, stylish clothes, and the glamour of a flashy lifestyle. To me, charm, flash and confidence were the ultimate symbols of success. I admired those who spoke fluently, dressed impeccably, and carried themselves with class. Anyone who entered a room radiating polish and presence instantly earned my respect. I believed that was what–making an impression– truly meant.

But as the years passed, I began to notice a pattern. The glitter often faded, the gloss peeled off and what remained beneath the surface was disappointingly hollow. Many of those who had once dazzled me turned out to be a classic case of fantastic packaging with trash content. That was when I understood that first impressions are like beautifully wrapped empty boxes… delightful to look at, disappointing to open. The real treasures, I learned, often come in plain wrappers.

Ironically, society is too obsessed with the quote—You never get a second chance to make the first impression. It’s a statement that hides a certain amount of truth beneath a veil of deceit. Truth, yes because how we appear, talk, and present ourselves does shape the memory we leave in another’s mind. Deceit…because what we say and how we say may only be a projection, a carefully edited trailer far removed from the real story.

Are we truly as good as we make ourselves out to be? We mask our mistakes, fudge our failures, shroud our shortcomings, and camouflage our behaviour by showing only what needs to be shown. We speak eloquently of our achievements but quietly bury our limitations. Between the part-truths we reveal, the half-truths we glorify, and the post-truths we create, the real truth gets lost somewhere in between.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink, observed that our immediate judgments are often nothing more than instinctive biases dressed up as intuition. We see what pleases our senses and assume it must please our soul. But true wisdom lies not in what we see first, but in what we continue to see after the initial shine fades.

Social media has made this illusion even more seductive. Our screens are flooded with perfect faces, glamorous events, exotic vacations, and motivational stories. Everything looks radiant, joyful, and picture perfect. Yet behind this shimmering façade often lies fatigue, insecurity and the silent pressure to appear successful. The real world, in contrast feels dull….a stale documentary compared to the racy thriller playing out online.

Today’s world is ooper-ooper se beautiful…outwardly perfect, inwardly restless. Everyone wants to be the perfect reel material— picture badhiya honi chahiye– even if it’s delusional. Yet somewhere beneath the filters and façades, truth waits patiently unfiltered, unpolished, but real.

Who suffers? Society at large caught in a flawed competition of appearances. We measure worth by visibility, confuse projection with personality, and applaud polish over purity. At our cost and our cause, this web of half-truths eclipses reality.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said—“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” Perhaps that’s the real antidote… to let authenticity speak, even if it’s quiet and unpolished. To live in such a way that one’s actions reflect more truth than one’s curated image.

And yet, I must admit, I still flounder and fumble. Despite writing this piece like an expert, don’t I get drawn toward good presentation and polished charm ? Have I risen above the lure of appearance ?

Well, the flash still beckons, the gloss still dazzles, the illusion still plays its part. Yet the lessons carved by time now guide me to pause…to listen.. to feel.. to look beyond what merely shines.

And the moment you begin honouring essence instead of appearances, you enter a different path…a different zone lonely to the world, but luminous within. For the spirit recognizes only sincerity, only humility, only the beauty that needs no disguise…!

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