Someone introduced me at a gathering once and described me in a way that stopped me cold. Not terrible. Just not accurate. And everyone around nodded like yes absolutely that is him. I smiled, said thank you and carried that moment home with me for days.Because it hit me in a way i was not expecting.
The version of you that lives in other peoples heads is not really you. It is a collection of moments they happened to witness. Snapshots. A bad day they saw. A good season they were present for. One version of you from three years ago that they filed away and never updated.And that version walks around representing you in conversations and rooms you are not even in.I used to exhaust myself trying to manage perception. Making sure every interaction left the right impression.
Carefully. Constantly. It is one of the most draining things a person can do and it never actually works because you cannot control what people decide to hold onto about you.The only version of yourself you have real authority over is the one you are quietly building every day. Through choices nobody witnesses. Through how you treat people when there is nothing to gain. Through who you are becoming in private when no audience is present.
That version is the one that actually defines you. Everything else is just other peoples interpretation and interpretations are always incomplete.People who knew you at your worst sometimes never allow you to be anything else in their mind. And people who only saw your best have a version of you that probably no longer exists. Neither is the full picture. Both are limited by what they were there to see.You are always going to be a different person to different people.
That is just the reality of human connection. Nobody gets the complete version of anyone.So stop twisting yourself trying to match the image someone else has of you. Stop shrinking to fit an old version they refuse to let go of. Stop performing for a perception that was never fully accurate to begin with.Build the version of yourself that you can live with honestly.That is the only one worth investing in.
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