Self-Worth and ‘What other people think…’

Posted on February 24, 2008
Filed Under Awareness |

When it comes to personal development, worrying about what other people think is perhaps one of the most complicated issues we face. The truth is, there is no one single catch-all solution which will fix this problem for everyone. Yet it can be broken down into a very simple proposition. So with that said I am not going to make this a lengthy analysis or discussion. Whilst we may feel we have many complex reasons as to why we worry about what other people think, the overlaying issue can often be put in to very simple terms.

Firstly, why do we care what other people think about us? This is an issue often rooted in early age, but it is also an accumulative affect of society. We are taught to look to others, and to authority - we are taught that other people know best and in general, we are not educated to have any form of self-reliance beyond what is needed to get employed. This means we find ourselves in a quagmire of uncertainty, as we continuously seek answers and / or validation from those around us.

As I expressed before, this attitude of looking to those around us is a symptom of our 100% reliance upon our physical senses. Our physical senses report to us about the outside world (what is going on around us, as opposed to what is going on inside of us), and therefore we are always looking to the outside world for a solution to our internal dilemmas. However without a keen awareness of what is going on internally, we are never likely to find a healthy and balanced solution. Where then does that leave us?

Simply put, it leaves us with figuring out our internal-senses; learning how to develop our ‘inner-eye’. The inner-eye is what reports to us our feelings and our insecurities, it is a sense (much like our physical ones) which informs us about what is going on. For the most part, we tend to ignore what our ‘inner-eye’ reports as we are more concerned with what is going on around us…I call this the ’self-evasion’.

Now in order to develop this inner-eye we need to overcome the self-evasion…and learn how to face ourselves and be responsible for our own thoughts and actions. This means we need to adopt a process which allows us to stop looking to other people and to ‘higher authorities’ (such as society, government, education, church) for all the answers.

I set myself a short list which helped me figure out how to approach this:

Am I capable of making moral and ethical decisions on my own?
My actions shouldn’t harm anyone.
Am I capable of positively affecting the course of my life?
What is it that I actually want?

Now I felt that if I was capable of being able to work with and build upon these four points, then why should it matter what other people think of me? If I could build my life around these points - then if other people judge me unfairly then it is obviously very simply because they have issues.

And that is the crux of thinking in this way, it is very much about self-value. What these points allow you to do, is turn the whole value system on its head. Things become about your own capabilities rather than what others think of you, and you don’t need to prove yourself because there is a intrinsic value in how you are living and thinking. For example you know you are capable of making a moral and ethical choice without any reliance upon laws, rules or outside authorities. That changes the whole game.

You create a different value-system which is based upon your own capabilities, one which responds to your own inner-needs. Eventually this has an accumulative affect which influences every decision and action you make in life. Life becomes about you, not in the selfish sense…but in the sense that you feel you are capable of leading your own life, rather than having it guided and influenced for you.

So ultimately we begin to modify our behavior by what we feel we are capable of rather than basing our values upon the opinions of others. And that’s a positive change indeed.

Comments

2 Responses to “Self-Worth and ‘What other people think…’”

Mark on February 25th, 2008 4:59 pm

Take a look at this article. I read this after reading this post. It relates well to what you said about looking to outside authority. But especially note the last paragraphs about how we share reality with what we decide is true.

http://thecleaver.blogspot.com/2008/02/crossing-rubicon-waking-from-fake-news.html

“Imagination is our holographic engine. It makes the world. Literally. If our imagination is running someone else’s program, we are living in someone else’s dream.”
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Marcus on February 25th, 2008 10:08 pm

Thanks for the link mate, that’s a pretty good read.

You know, the more it goes the more it seems that we are all living in our own simulation of the world. And that nearly all problems between people arise because of the conflicts between their different simulations.

I have been trying to figure out my own reality tunnel of late. After all we all have one, and there is no reason mine is any more real or valid than anyone else’s. So yeah, that’s certainly a relevant quote…
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