Alter Ego

Last December, IBM Global Process Services celebrated their Christmas Party with a theme “Alter Ego” with a tag line “Each of us is Wearing a Mask”. 

An alter ego is a second self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or original personality. A person who has an alter ego is said to lead a double life.  Alter ego is also used to refer to the different behaviors any person may display in certain situations.

We, Filipinos, are famous in being joyful. They often say, even we have a lot of problems; facing natural disasters, and calamities, financial problems, and emotional problems; we still make ourselves laugh, and always wear a smile. Bamboo’s song composition “Pinoy Ako” was truly inspirational. The song implies that we have a kind of “amulet” which we use as our shield to overcome all the problems in our life. And this powerful amulet is no other than our faith to God.

In the workplace, we often see smiles especially when you greet someone. We do not notice if the smile that is manifested by a person is real. In fact, a lot of them have different meanings. Perhaps, we still must wear a smile when working, especially when facing our clients and customers.  Call center agents are very talented in terms of changing their disposition when handling calls; whether their caller is an irate or a nice customer.

I, myself is good in handling problems and difficulties in life. I forget my personal and family problems when working, because I believe it will greatly affect my performance. This is a great way of controlling my personal emotions in different situations, especially when facing and interacting with my colleagues.

Each of us possesses different personalities that we can play in our daily life. Maybe you have a different personality while working in your office, and you play a different personality when you’re at home. But the most dominant is our personality that we acquired from our parents and environment. This is not easy to change, because this is our own nature, our true self, by which makes us different from other person. 

Human brains are capable of recording actual experiences of internal and external events, the most significant of which are recorded during the first five years of life. The states of being are not roles but psychological realities and phenomenological realities. The state is produced by the playback of recorded data of events in the past, involving real people, real times, real places, real decisions, and real feelings. Recorded events are inculcated in the subconscious mind and have automatic playback capability that can either be harmonious or unpleasant.


Although we have those recordings, we can choose what to play from those recordings. We can turn-off what are unnecessary, and or negative behavior that we acquired from those events.

An adult do not react to problems and challenges no matter how complex and great they are, but instead responds to provide solutions and innovations. We must respond like matured individuals and act with a systematic perspective in our life.

"I hide all problems behind my smile. Behind my smile is a world of pain. You think you know me, but you have no idea."