Everyone seems to believe they know how they would react in a given situation, even if they have never been in the situation before. It is natural of course, because we both believe we know ourselves well and are good at predicting how we are going to act, react or feel in the future. Yet, we are heavily influenced by our surroundings and history is littered with examples of people who have acted in ways that were fundamentally against their once held beliefs. Yet despite this, we naively imagine the "I will nevers" and the "If it was me I woulds" as if who we are in the moment we are able to think about it, will be the same person we are in that hypothetical situation.
And while the image above is a reminder of just how far from personal values an individual can come through manipulation, coercion and fear, it is also good to consider that we can use similar mechanisms to improve ourselves, and more readily support our values too. We can even use fear as a positive in the sense that we can identify outcomes that we don't want to happen, and then use our tools to direct us toward what we do want.
Some good advice in life is to "not care what others think of you" but the reality we have created is polar opposite to that. Instead, we are hyper-focused on what others think of us, especially strangers on the internet. However, despite the advice, I think it is sometimes appropriate to care what others think of us, because we live in a society where we should be cooperating. This doesn't mean that everything they say should be onboarded personally, but the way people think of us is also indicative of our own behaviour.
How would your friends and family describe you?
Would they say you are nice, hardworking, conscientious? Or perhaps they would say you are awkward, humourless and lazy. Though, most likely if they are friends of yours, they are friends of yours for a reason, right? All relationships are also bidirectional trades, where each person is swapping what they have for something in return. It might not be equal in value, but it is a trade nonetheless.
How would your enemies describe you?
I don't know if people have enemies, other than reality TV characters, but everyone has people who don't like them. But why don't they like you? Is it because you have what they don't, or you don't have what they think a person should? Perhaps they just think you are a dick.
So while we shouldn't "care" what others think about us, maybe we should care about what they think, because it gives us feedback collateral and gap identification we can use to grow as an individual. Because the way people treat us, often indicates how we are behaving. Maybe we are meeting resistance, being used as a doormat, being ignored, or attracting toxic people. Whatever these things are, we can learn from them and make decisions on what kind of person we want to be.
What kind of person do you want to be?
Take a moment and think about it.
What is stopping you from being exactly how you want to be?
You might not be able to change your looks, nor might you be able to get precisely the body you want, or the amount of money you want, or the partner you want... But you can behave as the kind of person you want to be. Your behaviours are yours. Just like your feelings are yours, and you are the only one that can hurt yourself with them. The way you act represents what you believe, so regardless of whether you have been conditioned and manipulated to be this way today, tomorrow is a new day, and you can be something else.
But most of us won't change intentionally.
Because we identify with a certain form of ourselves and for most, care what others think of us. If we change, what happens if the people around us don't like what we have become? It is safer to stay the same, the known devil, the familiar, even if that person is not pleasant, not successful, not liked.
We sit on the fence.
A fence-sitter is someone who won't take a side and remains neutral, but it isn't out of some moral position, rather it is out of fear. They know that if they commit to one side, they are going to be judged. And this applies to the changes we could make in ourselves too, because once we change, people will see us differently, some for the better, some for the worse. But in general, the ones who see us for the worse are those who were happy us being what they wanted us to be, like them. So instead of acting, we choose to stay uncommitted and undecided.
But inaction is a decision too.
I wonder if we were all to write out all the things we value, how many of us would live our life according to the list. I suspect there is quite a gap between our ideals and our actual behaviours. And then, what most of us will do is create some kind of excuse barrier to justify why there isn't alignment. But, if we are our actions, what we list as our values doesn't matter.
And while we might not care about what others think - what about what we think of ourselves? If we aren't living to our values, what do we see in the mirror? If we are sitting on the fence and not making a decision, is it because that is what we actually want to do, or is it out of fear of judgement, fear of being wrong, or fear of repercussions? Why can't we decide and act? Are we scared that if we try we will fail?
I believe many of us (including me) are often "on the fence" about things we know we should do, but aren't making the actions to do it. We are waiting for perhaps a miracle to arrive so we don't have to make the change, or that somehow magically, the change will be made for us, without us having to make the decision at all.
There are many reasons.
But I wonder, are we on the fence, or behind it?
Taraz
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