The Mask of Functioning: Why Stress Feels Safer Than Peace

Part 2 of the “Invest to Survive” Series

This blog is for those who are tired of performing wellness and ready to build real peace from the inside out.

Excerpt: When stress becomes your baseline, peace feels unsafe. This is the reality of a life lived in survival mode, where chaos feels normal and calmness is fleeting. In Part 2, we go deeper into the inner architecture of the human experience to answer the question: Why is peace so hard to attain, maintain, and recognize?

Why Stress Feels Safer Than Peace

We are taught that stress is a part of life. It’s a shared experience, no matter your age, race, or background. We’ve accepted it as normal, so we focus on managing it rather than eliminating it. To eliminate stress altogether? That sounds like a luxury we don’t have. It sounds like a fairy tale.

We distract ourselves by debating who carries more stress: Women or men, minorities or majorities, adults or children. But here’s the deeper truth:

Life was given to us without a manual. No instructions. No explanation. We learned to survive. We built routines. We built society. We built masks. We created categories to function optimally.

The problem? What once helped us survive now keeps us from experiencing peace. We move from one area of life to the next: School, work, parenting, relationships as if they’re unrelated. But everything is connected.

“The person you became to survive is not the person who can lead your healing.”

We don’t fully enjoy calm moments because we’re bracing for the next dip in the roller coaster that is our life.

You Were Damaged During Transport

Some of us weren’t given the finer things in life: Joy, love, or support. We met the dark side of life early. That’s what I call being damaged during transport.

We weren’t destroyed. We are resilient. But we are wounded.

Sometimes that resilience becomes a barrier to change. The tools we once used to overcome adversity have now become obstacles to peace. We don’t realize that because we built resilience, we are in fact stronger. But we don’t use that strength to build, we use it solely to survive.

Those of us in this category should be more risk averse when it comes to finance, but we are not. We only skim the surface of our issues. The deeper pain remains buried and masked.

It’s like spraying perfume to mask a bad odor. The scent may be floral, but the stench underneath is still present.

“Performance isn’t peace. Stress becomes our baseline not because it feels good, but because it feels familiar.”

Even high-functioning people with strong work ethic and deep care for what they produce get stuck in stress. We know how to power through grief, loss, or poverty, but we don’t know how to sit in the storm long enough to understand it.

We climb over obstacles but rarely stop to dissect them.

That’s where the real work begins.

Everything Is One Subject

One of the biggest shifts I had was realizing that life is not made of separate categories.

All the subjects we learned in school: Math, Science, English, History are all connected. Society separated them to make learning easier, but that separation is artificial.

And unfortunately, we’ve built our lives around that same illusion.

Do you believe your grief (psychology) has no effect on your body (science)? Or that your past (history) doesn’t impact your performance (statistics)? Every subject is explaining life. And when you realize that, things begin to make sense.

If subjects are connected, so are the events of your life. There are no isolated experiences. Each moment is a thread, weaving a larger pattern. Beneath it all is your purpose.

The Seed vs. The Mask

There’s something inside you. Call it a seed, a spirit, or energy. It doesn’t matter the name, the concept is the same.

We have a physical body. We have a soul, which I believe is the real you. Lastly, we have the ability to create life inside us; that's the seed. We were all given a seed, and only we can cultivate it.

The life cycle of the seed: It gets tested through adversity. It strengthens when we overcome it. It grows when we gain meaningful insight.

But it doesn’t stop there. If you not only gain insight but transform painful emotions into something constructive, that is power! That is like fertilizer to the seed.

" Life is our spiritual gym.”

But most people never get to that last part because they’re too busy managing the outside, their mask. So they may have gained insight from adversity, but they never took the time to transform that insight and pain into their constructive power. They walk around with knowledge but no application.

It’s easier to wear the mask of functioning.

What Keeps Us From Growing

We live in a culture of performance. We use the physical world to control what we’re too afraid to confront inside. And society rewards us for the mask.

I’m not saying the mask is useless. I’m saying we can’t live through it. It should be a tool, not an identity.

When you live through the mask, you lose authenticity. You miss what needs tending. You lose power.

That’s why you feel drained, anxious, overstimulated. The performance costs energy. And those negative emotions generate a lower frequency.

The shift begins with awareness. That’s why there’s power in admitting you have a problem. You get to switch from automatic to intentional.

Even something as basic as how you buy eggs can reveal your intention. People who want to eat better often start with diet trends like keto, vegan, or paleo. But intentional people dig deeper.

They ask: Where did this food come from? Is it pasture raised? What’s the farm’s philosophy?

This isn’t obsession. It’s alignment. And once you begin living intentionally, everything starts to change. You become the driver of your own life.

The Frequency Split

We’re all operating on different frequencies and levels of energy.

That misalignment is visible. We are picture perfect on the outside but fractured within. The truth is, we lack a shared language for what’s happening inside.

So we cling to what we can measure: Race, gender, status, performance.

But if you want to live a purposeful life, you have to go deeper. Beyond behavior. Beyond mindset. Beyond discipline.

You have to return to your essence.

This Is the Real Simulation

People talk about “the simulation” like it’s science fiction.

But the real simulation is the life we’ve agreed to call normal.

We’ve mistaken functioning for living.
We’ve made stress our home.
We’ve built lives on autopilot and called them success.

And now, we’re afraid of stillness because stillness reveals truth.

Peace Is Built, Not Given

You don’t stumble into peace. You build it.

Brick by brick. Breath by breath. Moment by moment.

You make one intentional choice. Then another. Then another.

Not because you’re obsessed with growth, but because you’re committed to alignment.

And alignment can’t happen if your body and spirit are at war.

The Cliffhanger

So why does stress feel safer than peace?

Because stress is easier to manage than peace is to build.

We’re taught how to manage time, stress, and our households. But we’re not taught how to build legacy, and legacy is part of building peace. It requires consciousness. You have to train your mind to focus on intention before consciousness can truly guide your decisions.

Your desire for change is real, so now challenge yourself. Be intentional. Every move you make today, analyze it. How many of your decisions brought you closer to your personal goals? You have to learn the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of yourself. Every part of you has value if used in a constructive way.

Who are you when the world won’t slow down? When the chaos keeps coming? That’s for you to explore. Can you be calm in the storm? Yes, and that’s exactly where we’re going next.

We’re going to start building a piece of peace.

🔜 Coming Next:
Part 3 — Invest to Survive: Why Every Move Matters When You’re One Crisis Away
You don’t need more hustle. You need a new strategy. Let’s build it from the inside out.

If this blog spoke to you, Part 3 will help you turn reflection into strategy. Subscribe or share it with someone else who’s tired of performing wellness and ready to build real peace from the inside out.