Every day I hear: this one is this or is that, did this or did that...I know him or her very well and he/she is most of the time this or that... everybody has an opinion about somebody, everybody knows or has knowledge of somebody else, all of us define others in words. Most of the time those opinions are not favorable, except when we want to impress the surrounding crowd by our generosity and understanding of the human soul and people actions.
For the past 50 years I have been hearing that I was generous and cheap, funny and boring, a happy person and a sad sack, pessimistic and full of optimism, giving and selfish, talentless and full of creativity, intelligent and stupid, cultured and ignorant, scatterbrained and organized, talkative and silent, gloomy and open, tyrannical and a free spirit, a Frenchman and an Italian, a Jew and an agnostic... I will not even dare to repeat or understand what I heard about my looks, my ways, my behavior with people...and so on... I heard everything from the left, from the right, from young, and old, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and just about everybody in this world.
HOW STRANGE
We often disagree with others when we talk about somebody else who is not present and the conversation always ends with REALLY ??????? He is like that ? I would have never guessed it...
Of course it is a good thing to have a multi-faceted personality, to offer every one different aspects of ourselves, and to the world all sides of a human being but where is the real person and who is he or she?
Is it dangerous to live one's life as unknown to others and to ourselves?
Who am I really?
I have heard so many times:
"People believe I am like... this, but in reality I am like... that. People do not know me, I am not what they believe I am."
What is more important: what we are or what people believe we are? And with all this contradictory information, do I know who I am ?
And if opinions change so widely, how should we deal with it? Who do we believe?
How can I be a functioning person in my profession if I am perceived so differently.
How can I use who I am to advance, improve and in some professions become somebody else if I do not even know how most people see me? Especially if most people I meet have different feelings and understandings of who I am.
John or Leslie are in charge of an office and has a staff meeting, if she/he smiles, one will believe it is so charming while someone else will think it is a trick to take advantage of the staff by being nice.
How can I be in charge or be creative, how can I function in a group, or for some of us give the right interpretation of a character if I do not know what I project?
In my life, I made a lot of enemies because I said things which were taken as insults, or as an invasion of privacy, or an unacceptable criticism; was I aware of it? Most of the time, no, I was not...it happened because I did not have the same approach or the same interpretation or the same understanding.
Can I say that I was indifferent to others feelings, I do not believe so.
Can I say that I was not cautious? Perhaps.
When should we tell the truth or to be more accurate, "our" truth to people asking for our advice?
Can we give advice? When we know that another adviser will say the opposite because of who he is and what he does and what he wants.
Most of men and women of my generation who were in charge of a group, a company, an association, are disappearing devoured by age or by the new generation, hungry for power like we were at their age.
Does that mean we know less?
Or maybe what we know is no longer relevant? Is what we know out of touch with today's needs?
Are we becoming a caricature of ourselves without even realizing it?
Or does it mean that our presence disturbs, annoys and threatens the upcoming generation because of our knowledge?
Is it because they know that we know that they know less than us? ACCORDING TO US!!!!!!!
Again it depends who is the judge, who sees , who listens, and who understands what is at stake.
HOW STRANGE
Life marches on and we all try to find a slot, whatever it may be and we have to do it for a long time, and sometimes we like the place we are in, or often we do not and we look around.
The laws of the human heart cannot be reasoned, they obey to a logic of their own.
Should we be just who we are and ignore the judgment of others? Should we go on with the difficult thought that we can be misunderstood by many? Or should we try to correct throughout our life what we believe to be a wrong perception?
So much time devoted in fixing what we believe is the truth? Or the non-truth?
Can we go on ignoring everybody around us, dismissing what they think of us and our actions because to attach some importance can become paralyzing?
Should we just try always to be honest with ourselves even if it means giving up on certain things in order to advance or to survive?
I have sometimes behaved with people with no restraints, no barriers, no mental block and later regretted it...
Was I being myself at that time, or was it just a moment, or a one possible facet of my personality?
And that facet became what some people believe was the essence of who I am?
Should we constantly be under control because of a possible negative interpretation?
But relentless control is impossible...
SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO????
If I knew that I would be on top of the world, may be to be aware of this dilemma is already part of the solution; we cannot please everybody, we cannot expect everybody to like us, to love us, to understand us, or even to accept us... because we are closely connected to each other and to everything...and what we are is also shared with others and with their understanding.
Every word I say, every gesture I make contains the possibility of a different interpretation by somebody...and that somebody will color it with his own palette and his own brushes.
YES IT IS STRANGE TO KNOW THAT WE ARE NOT ALONE
