The Fourth Face We Created

By: Astrid Sarmiento a.k.a Lil Poetrid

A few years ago, I came across a philosophical quote often attributed to a Japanese proverb:

"The Japanese say you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends and family. The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are."

Whether or not the saying truly originated in Japan hardly matters. What matters is that somewhere along the way, I began to wonder if our generation had quietly created a fourth.

You know... the face that lives online.

It isn't necessarily dishonest. In fact, most of the photos we post are real moments. The vacation happened. The promotion happened. The wedding, the graduation, the birthday dinner... they all happened.

Yet sometimes I wonder if our feeds have quietly become museums of milestones.

Metaphorically, we fill them with sunsets, but leave out the storms. We decide to post the smiles, but not the sleepless nights that came before them. Or we upload our victories, but not the years we spent wondering whether we'd ever make it.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with celebrating joy. We should. Life offers enough reasons to mourn that we should never feel guilty for sharing what makes us smile.

The danger begins when we mistake someone's highlights for their whole story.

Every day, we compare our ordinary Tuesday to someone else's once-in-a-lifetime moment.

The behind-the-scenes never make the cut, so we convince ourselves that their life is one beautiful, uninterrupted film.

Then we quietly ask ourselves why we feel behind.

What we fail to realize is that we're comparing our season of planting to someone else's harvest.

Perhaps we were never behind at all. Maybe we were simply comparing chapters that were never meant to be read side by side.

Ironically, the moments that shape us the most rarely make it onto the big screen.

And maybe that's because we've all become editors of our own trailers. We are carefully deciding which scenes deserve an audience and which ones remain on the cutting-room floor.

Few people dare to open up about the afternoon they sat alone in their parked car trying to gather the strength to walk into work.

Or the nights they cried themselves to sleep.

Some of us are too ashamed to share the rejection email we almost allowed to define us.

Many don't have the strength to speak about the loneliness that lingered long after everyone assumed they were okay.

Or the courage it took just to get out of bed.

These are the invisible chapters. The ones that quietly build character while no one is watching.

And when someone does decide to share one of those chapters, something strange happens.

We have become so accustomed to polished stories that honesty sometimes feels suspicious.

We hear many people say:

"Oh, they're just looking for attention."

"That's so performative."

"It's so cringe. Why would they post that?"

Of course, not every vulnerable post comes from the same place. Some are crafted for an audience. Others are simply a hand reaching into the dark, hoping another hand might reach back.

Perhaps attention-seeking isn't always vanity.

Sometimes it's another way of saying,

"Hey... can somebody sit with me for a minute?"

Somewhere along the way, vulnerability became something to critique instead of something to recognize.

We say we want authenticity, but authenticity requires us to reveal the very parts we've been taught to hide.

Maybe that's why so many of us crave depth. Not because we are fascinated by sadness or because we romanticize pain, but because depth reminds us that someone else has stood where we are standing.

Depth isn't speaking in riddles or collecting profound quotes.

It is the courage to say,

"This part of my life isn't beautiful yet and I am still a work in progress."

It is allowing another person to witness an unfinished chapter without rushing to rewrite it into a happy ending.

Depth is intimacy.

It is standing emotionally bare without ever removing a single thread of clothing.

Depth is inviting another person to see the parts of you that words usually keep hidden.

It is admitting that healing is slower than a caption.

That grief doesn't disappear after the funeral.

That success doesn't erase insecurity.

That loneliness can exist in a crowded room.

Isn't it interesting how the things that make us the most human are often the things we speak less about?

Death.

Grief.

Fear.

Failure.

Heartbreak.

The quiet ache of wondering whether we're enough.

These are universal truths and experiences. Every life will brush against them in one form or another.

Yet we often treat them as if speaking their names somehow makes us weak, uncomfortable, or less successful.

Maybe that's why conversations that touch these spaces feel so rare. Not because these experiences are uncommon, but because honesty is.

Perhaps that's why we're so deeply moved when someone finally speaks the truth that we've been carrying in silence.

Not because their story is identical to ours.

But because it reminds us we were never meant to carry the weight of being human alone.

Of course, privacy will always have its place. Not every wound belongs on a timeline or every tear needs an audience.

There is wisdom in keeping certain parts of ourselves sacred.

But there is also freedom in remembering that being human was never meant to be a performance.

The fourth face we created isn't the enemy, it has simply become louder than the other three.

Perhaps the greatest act of courage today isn't posting more.

It isn't disappearing either.

Maybe it's remembering that every person we scroll past is carrying an unwritten story.

A grief we cannot see.

A fear they have not named.

A dream still finding its footing.

And maybe the life we envy is simply another life that has learned to crop out or place a filter over its darkness.

The older I get, the less interested I become in perfectly curated lives. I'm drawn instead to the people who remind me that being human is messy, unfinished, contradictory, and beautifully ordinary.

I admire the ones who don't pretend they've escaped hardship. The ones who have simply learned to carry it with grace.

Maybe we don't need fewer celebrations. Perhaps we simply need to remember that no one's life has ever been as complete as their profile suggests.

And perhaps the fourth face was never the problem. Maybe we simply forgot that the other three still deserve to be seen.

After all, life has never been lived in highlights. It has always been lived in the drafts.

The crossed-out sentences.

The unfinished chapters.

The pages stained by tears, rewritten by hope, and softened by time.

Perhaps that's why we should be gentler with ourselves, and with one another.

We are all carrying stories that have not yet reached their final page.

We are all still revising.

Still becoming.

Still finding the words for things we've only ever felt.

Maybe the most beautiful part of being human is that none of us are finished.

Because every masterpiece begins as a sketch.

Every novel begins as a blank page.

Every life begins as a story no one has read yet.

And perhaps that is our greatest privilege...to spend our lives becoming the very people we are meant to be because we are masterpieces waiting to be published.