Who You Are

A while back I started reading Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind book. I say started because I still haven't finished. It's a strange collection of chapters discussing everything from religion to hypnosis and it has so far failed to really hook me.

One part of the book talks about a lady who comes across as really abrupt. Whether it was on the phone or by e-mail, I forget, but she claimed that she wasn't really nasty and that she was misunderstood.

Derren Brown says that it doesn't really matter what she think she's like - the reasoning being something along the lines of if she is coming across as rude to other people then she is rude, whatever she thinks of herself.

But it does matter what you think of yourself. If we are too negative this can have a large impact on our confidence and self-esteem. We need to have a balanced view of ourselves and try to be content with our personalities, even if we are not perfect. We can't believe everything that people tell us about ourselves. They are only opinions afterall.

Likewise, I don't think you can say that it doesn't matter what other people think about you. It might sound ideal, but you have to consider what people think of you in many situations. The question is, how much should we react to other people's perceptions about us and to what degree should we care?

Comments

[saffronsaris]

Agree with you
"We need to have a balanced view of ourselves and try to be content with our personalities, even if we are not perfect. We can't believe everything that people tell us about ourselves. They are only opinions afterall."

To what degree we should react to other people's perception, I guess that would depend on who those people are, and how their perceptions can affect the relationship.

The degree to which one is affected, say of a superior's perception compared to a penpal's perception, is quite different. Of course, it depends also on one's perspective and goals in life.

I would say there isn't a hard and fast rule, but most importantly, one should learn to love oneself first, which many people neglect to.

[Darren]

Yes, that's exactly what I was getting at. Loving oneself does sound like something from a self-help book but it does have a real influence on how you perceive yourself and how you end up coming across to other people, too.

One thing I find is that times when you've totally misread a situation or what others think about you that can be shocking but enlightening when they actually tell you their thoughts. Maybe sometimes we should just ask people for their honest opinions instead of making too many assumptions?