Self Perception

[Fathis Crowe]

I couldn't sleep the other night and spent the whole time thinking.. It led me to write this. Let me know what you think.

"Don't let another person dictate how you feel about yourself. People love to judge! As unfortunate as it may seem, that’s life… We all pride ourselves on being perfect, yet we all know that perfection is unobtainable. It doesn't even make sense!!! Our opinions, style, attitude, and overall perceptions on life are all we know as individuals. Our uniqueness is what makes us beautiful. It is also what makes us ugly. The difference is how we acknowledge it.

One thing to remember is that perfection is opinion-based. What may be perfect to one person may be the total opposite to another. You can’t hate on someone for being different. You don’t have to embrace them either. Just appreciate and acknowledge that not everyone thinks or acts like you do. And this doesn’t make you better or worse than that person, just different."

 

[joko104]

Makes me think of this song:



Another person might pick Elvis' "I did it my way."

 

[Goshin]

One of the few things I like about getting on in years... I stopped giving a **** about most people's opinion of me somewhere in my 30's... today there's really only a handful of people whose good opinion really matters to me.

 

[lizzie]

"Don't let another person dictate how you feel about yourself. People love to judge! As unfortunate as it may seem, that’s life… We all pride ourselves on being perfect, yet we all know that perfection is unobtainable. It doesn't even make sense!!! Our opinions, style, attitude, and overall perceptions on life are all we know as individuals. Our uniqueness is what makes us beautiful. It is also what makes us ugly. The difference is how we acknowledge it.

I think you're on the right track. The thing is, you don't consciously "let" others dictate how you feel about yourself. You learn to like yourself first (easier said than done), and then you don't really much care what other people think. It frees you to just bee yourself, and be satisfied with that. The pressure to jump through hoops and try to impress just falls away, and you become the genuine thing.

 

[Gardener]

Would this be the proper moment for introducing George Herbert Mead's concept of the "generalized other"?

or, should we wish to reach back a bit further, there is the Freudian concept of the superego.


AS far as I'm concerned, there is a continuum between sociopathic disregard for others and a neurotic preoccupation with conforming to the expectations of others. Where any of us fall along this continuum might be the issue here.

 

[MaggieD]

I couldn't sleep the other night and spent the whole time thinking.. It led me to write this. Let me know what you think.

"Don't let another person dictate how you feel about yourself. People love to judge! As unfortunate as it may seem, that’s life… We all pride ourselves on being perfect, yet we all know that perfection is unobtainable. It doesn't even make sense!!! Our opinions, style, attitude, and overall perceptions on life are all we know as individuals. Our uniqueness is what makes us beautiful. It is also what makes us ugly. The difference is how we acknowledge it.

One thing to remember is that perfection is opinion-based. What may be perfect to one person may be the total opposite to another. You can’t hate on someone for being different. You don’t have to embrace them either. Just appreciate and acknowledge that not everyone thinks or acts like you do. And this doesn’t make you better or worse than that person, just different."

That's great advice. Young people, however, are often carefully scripted into feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing. By the time they're old enough to embrace your advice, they are often broken beyond repair.

 

[lizzie]

That's great advice. Young people, however, are often carefully scripted into feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing. By the time they're old enough to embrace your advice, they are often broken beyond repair.

That is pretty much a natural course of life, as we are molded from birth to conform to the expectations of others. In a way, it's a necessary evil, and you only hope that a bridge can be formed for the individual as he exists in both worlds, usually by necessity.