Week 89 - "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are" - Anaïs Nin
I’ve recently been thinking a lot about how the kind of people we surround ourselves with play a huge role in how we see things. Maybe it’s just because I’m in school with 40,000 other people from around the world, but I’ve started to realize that what my friends and I consider normal can be perceived very differently by others.
And as someone who loves to meet new people, it’s been an interesting change to try and look at myself from an outside perspective.
Yet, I wonder if that’s even a good thing.
I’ve always strongly believed in not letting others' opinions dictate your life. So, trying to understand what might be going through someone else's mind when they see me feels a bit counterintuitive. But if you ever want to truly understand where someone else is coming from, you’re supposed to put yourself in their shoes, right?
Unfortunately, that’s where the nuance comes in.
How do you consider what someone might interpret something you say or do, while also not letting their opinion sway you?
On the inside, I want to not care, knowing it’s my life and how someone else takes something is their problem, not mine. However, those who see the world differently than me are going to always react differently to what I say or do.
So while it’s great to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to see things differently, you need to be mindful of how you view yourself in the process. After all, we aren’t even meant to see ourselves from our perspective as much as we do.
For most of human history, people could only catch glimpses of their reflection in water or polished surfaces. But now, we're constantly confronted with our own image, scrutinizing ourselves from angles that aren't always flattering or even accurate.
Mix that scrutiny with someone else’s thoughts and feelings and it’s easy to see why it’s so difficult to separate who we are from how we appear.
Like all things, it comes down to a balance between empathy and individualism. You have to be aware enough to understand where someone’s coming from but also brave enough to be who you really are, regardless of what others may think.
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