Technology Everywhere

There is a saying that “Your companions are your mirrors and show you yourself.”  There are pretty deep and intricate explanations for why this may be (for instance, one by Deepak Chopra) but I believe that truth can be found in this statement on a fairly simple level as well.

If you think about it, when we interact with another person, even in a very superficial way, we can use their reactions to us as clues as to how we come across to other people.  Just as our opinions of ourselves are not completely accurate (know anyone who over-magnifies their own flaws or overstates their own virtues?), others’ beliefs about us are also likely biased in some way of which we are not aware.  So it’s important to avoid taking any one opinion as the truth, and instead look at them as a whole to see what kind of picture they paint of us.

If it were simple enough for me to advise that we try to do better at recognizing how people react to us, I would just do that.  However, there are some major obstacles that makes that a very difficult accomplishment in today’s world:

First of all, I have become aware that we have turned into a society where “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.” is a popular attitude.  I think it’s is a potentially dangerous one.  I do believe that no one has a right to put us down for our personal beliefs or lifestyles. However, I believe that when we start behaving without any regard for what people around us may think, we run the risk of disrespecting those around us by ignoring their beliefs as well as becoming stuck with only our own distorted images of ourselves.

Another big problem is that, in order to pay attention to how other people react to us, it would first require us to actually interact with each other.  If you’ve been in any kind of public space lately (like walking down a city street or on any form of public transportation), you have surely noticed the overwhelming abundance of people fiddling with their “smart” phones or listening to their mp3 players with headphones. These devices have provided us with an excuse to avoid so much as looking at other people, let alone speaking or interacting with them.  I’ve held doors open for people who were so engrossed in their phones that they didn’t even notice or acknowledge my presence.   Eye contact has somehow become taboo and by saying hello to a stranger, we are likely to elicit some kind of “What do you want?” reaction.

Even with the “smart” phones, we are beginning to actually speak to each other less and less.  It has become so common for e-mail or text messaging to be the preferred methods of phone communication over actually having a voice conversation – even if talking directly to one another would be quicker and easier!  I actually received a text message recently asking “How are property taxes determined?”, as if I could’ve given any real explanation to that in 160 characters or less!

We don’t have to interact with bank tellers anymore because we can manage our money online.  We can buy groceries without talking to another human being because we can use the self-checkout machines.  Just about everything, these days, can be handled without human contact and it’s causing us to lose all of our social skills.  We are beginning to forget how to have normal face-to-face conversations with each other.  We are beginning to not even see each other even if we’re standing right next to one other.

So, we can’t see ourselves because we can’t see each other.  It’s a pretty scary thing and I think that we, as a society, are in trouble especially if we continue along this path.  We need to try and think of ways to reverse this, otherwise there may be no coming back…

Susan Boyle on "Britain's Got Talent"

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard the hype over Susan Boyle, a contestant on the show “Britain’s Got Talent“.  (If you haven’t, take a peek at the video on YouTube here.) I can very easily be counted for at least 10 of the 6.7+ million hits on the YouTube video of her performance, and that’s just in the last 24 hours.  Just between you and me, I cried like a baby every time.

She walks on stage only to be met by jeers and laughs, even before she spoke a single syllable.  It was clear that she was immediately being judged based on her appearance.  Some news reports have described her as “frumpy” ,”old” (she’s 47), and a “spinster”.  Apparently, most peoples’ first impression of Ms. Boyle was that there could not possibly be a single talented bone in her body.  Boy, was everyone wrong!  This woman has an AMAZING voice that shocked us all, and that surprise was clearly displayed on the faces of the BGT judges.  They clearly weren’t expecting much out of this contestant either.  As if to make our misjudgement even more glaring, just a few seconds into Ms. Boyle’s performance, BGT host Anthony “Ant” McPartlin yelled at us into the camera, complete with an accusing point of his finger, saying “You didn’t expect that, did you?  Did you? NO!”.

I love this video because, as the BGT judge Amanda Holden said, it was a “wake up call” to all of us to question why we immediately discount someone who doesn’t fit society’s ideals.  It brought to our attention how fast we jump to conclusions about someone without ever knowing a single thing about them.  Most of us don’t show the patience of really getting to know a person before passing judgement.  We are all guilty of this. It’s just too easy to assume things based on what we see on the surface, and it’s usually done within a few quick seconds.

But it is completely and utterly wrong for us to do it.  Ms. Boyle stunned us all with her unbelievably beautiful voice and immediately we fell in love with her.  We made a huge mistake and it was thrown back in our faces.  Shows what we know.

We just need to train ourselves to fight our prejudices and give people a real chance before we write them off.  Some form of beauty can be found in almost everyone, and it’s not just the physical beauty that we’ve all been brainwashed into believing makes someone “acceptable”.   It may not be a fabulous singing voice, or even anything that requires what we would usually define as “talent”.  It could be the ability to comfort someone in pain, the ability to actually hear you when they listen to you, or the ability to love others more than you could ever conceive of.  Beauty is everywhere and it’s not just something that you see, it’s something that you feel.

Learn it & Live it. I will certainly try.

It’s a tad bit distressing to be asking myself this now, because I seem to remember not too long ago, that I sat down and made a list of priorities for myself where I decided what was important to me and what wasn’t. Where did I go wrong? How did I stray so far from my “Big Plan” to do things that I enjoy and to make efforts to do things just for me? What happened to make me forget the direction in which I was headed?

Well, the answer is that life happened. I got caught up in the standard day-to-day activities of my life and I began to forget about myself again. It’s so easy to do. I just always seem to have a million things going on, and for some reason, I seem to prioritize the things that I want to do for myself (paying attention to my health, reading, writing, exploring new hobbies etc.) after everything else, so I don’t really ever get to them.

First of all, because of constantly advancing technology, not only can we get more things done in a short period of time these days, but we feel that we have to jam-pack our schedules or we’re just wasting time. Our employers expect more and more productivity out of us because technology to make our jobs “easier” is being developed all the time. And simply because we are able to instantly contact people via e-mail or instant messengers, we feel guilty if we can’t find time to type a quick note and hit send. Think about it: 20 years ago, how long would it have taken us to make a transfer at the bank, buy a new winter coat, and buy groceries for dinner? Those tasks could easily have taken up half a day. Now we can do it all in minutes online. And because we can do so much so fast now, we feel that we must.

Also I have this problem, as many people do, where if certain people in my life ask or need me to do something for them, I have a very hard time telling them no… even if I don’t really want to do it. Thankfully, this group of people, for me, is relatively small but the things I end up doing for them still seem to take up a lot of time. Of course, it’s my job as a mother to do these things for my child, who is too young to do most things on her own, so I’m not complaining about that. It’s the other people to whom I give my time. Why are their wants and needs more important than mine? How can I begin to learn to say no?

What I really need to do is to focus. I need to take at least a moment, if not several, out of every day to just stop and remind myself of what my priorities are. The key word in there is “stop”. I need to stop thinking about how my boss is asking me for a report by the end of the day. I need to stop thinking about my daughter’s Halloween costume. I need to stop thinking about that noise my car is making. I need to stop thinking about how dirty my curtains are, even if it will only take an hour to clean them. I need to stop thinking about whether or not anyone will eat the spaghetti tonight if I make it. I just need to take a moment for myself and clear my head of all of that craziness and refocus on what is really important to me. Because the truth is, once I do that, I can see that most of what is running through my mind isn’t as dire as it seems.

It is possible to accomplish these moments of focus by finding a short time to be alone, preferably in the morning right after waking, to clear your mind of all thoughts. Take time to breathe and let your mind relax. Then, slowly and gradually give yourself a chance to think about your priorities in life and how they relate to your priorities on this particular day. Ask yourself if the things that you’ve planned to do align with your overall goals in your life. Then with that reminder fresh and focused in your mind, do your best to make sure that everything you do that day is meaningful to you. Even if it you can only find 5 minutes in the bathroom, this exercise is worthwhile to help you to regain a clear view on what you need and want to do in life. If you can do this more than once a day, that’s even better.

You may recognize the previous exercise to be a “lite” form of meditation. Though meditation does have its roots in religion, it does not have to be performed as a religious act. Instead, it can be used as a tool to improve the clarity of your mind. If you find the above activity to be helpful to you in your life, you may consider exploring meditation a bit more. I have dabbled in it in the past (inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh and guided by Pema Chodron), but I admit, I have let it fall by the wayside. I do want to begin meditating again, because I did feel that I accomplished more meaningful things in my life while I was actively seeking that quiet time.

One other tool that I have found useful in the past to help me focus on my goals is the website 43things. It’s a site where you can list and prioritize your goals and, in a rather blog-like fashion, write entries to document your progress towards reaching each goal. You can find other people who have the same goals as you do, keep track of their progress (as they can with yours), and you can cheer each other on (with virtual cheers). It really is an amazing thing to gain a support group to help motivate you towards reaching your goals. I have to admit though, that I spent over a year as a member of 43things, but after a while it became too time consuming for me to continue writing and keeping up with all of the other wonderful people I met. There just came a point in time where all the time I was spending on the site was taking away from other things I wanted to do. You can, however, do a better job than I did at finding balance and it can be extremely helpful. (I may need to return, since I seem to have swung back to the other extreme of having lost track of my goals!)

These days, it’s difficult to stop and think about yourself, especially when you have other people that you need to think about as well. But, as they always say, if you continue going through life without taking the time to think about and take care of yourself, you may not be around to take care of anyone in the future. It really is important to make sure that the things that we do in life are truly meaningful to us, otherwise one day we’ll wake up feeling empty, like we haven’t accomplished anything real at all.

Affection is like a drug. We crave it. We actively seek it out. Sometimes, once we’ve had a taste, we might do almost anything to get just a little bit more. It can give us an emotional high to which we desperately cling because the mere thought of being without it is so painfully dreadful. The addictive quality of affection has the power to change our behavior and our personalities to the point that we are no longer acting as our true selves.

It’s completely natural to want affection from our family and from romantic partners. To feel loved can be an exhilarating feeling and it can provide us with a sense of comfort in our lives. To be denied affection from those we care about can be devastating. Especially if we have been without affection for a period of time, a simple hug, caress or a few kind words can be enough to set our hearts aflutter and ignite our desire for more.

The scary thing is that, especially in romantic situations, it’s entirely possible to love the attention and affection that someone gives us, without really loving the person who is giving it to us. Now, in the earliest stages of a romantic relationship, it isn’t always easy to distinguish what we’re really attached to in the other person. At that point, it’s usually such a whirlwind of emotions and we’re often so giddy and happy that we don’t really care to analyze why we’re into this other person. We may even ignore things about the other person that might really bother us if we were thinking more clearly. Just the fact that the interest seems mutual and that we’re getting affection is often enough to keep us flying emotionally high… for a while, at least.

At some point, the tediousness of constantly acting as someone other than our true selves can wear us down, though we may never recognize that as being the real problem. We just start to recognize that what used to make us happy in a relationship just doesn’t seem to be enough anymore.

In a romantic situation, we may think that the novelty of the new relationship has simply worn off. We might not realize that, in casting aside bothersome qualities about the other person, we have been denying ourselves of the qualities that we really want in a romantic partner. For instance, if our partner is constantly pointing out things that are wrong with us, or things that we should improve about ourselves, we may be inclined think of it as “constructive criticism”. Instead of admitting to ourselves that this other person might have unreasonable expectations of us, we choose to ignore that he/she is doing anything other than trying to help us… because if we don’t ignore it, we might have to come down off of this happy cloud that we’re on and we may have to give up that affection and that “pretty picture” to which we’ve become so attached. It’s might also be equally or more disheartening to think about the fact that the other person may be guilty of ignoring characteristics in us too, because they desire to keep affection that we give as well.

And just think about all of the things that a person will do to win or keep the affection of their parents. He or she might follow a certain career path or marry a certain kind of person even if the job or spouse is not something he or she truly wants for themselves. The threat of losing the approval and affection of a parent is scary and can be reason enough to ignore our own true desires.

In any relationship where we have been inclined to change our behavior, we may come to a point where we wonder “Why can’t they just love me for who I really am?”. Part of the answer may be that we’ve never been strong enough to show who we really are. We’ve catered to the other person’s wants, needs and preferences for so long that, at least outwardly, we’ve shown that we’re completely ok with the way things have gone so far. If we haven’t voiced any complaints yet, any new complaints will seem strange and out of character for us. We may have even gotten to the point where we don’t even know what we really want anymore, because we’ve spent so much time trying to be who others want us to be. We’ve been so scared of losing the love, affection or closeness that we’ve gained by changing ourselves that we’ve lost our true selves in the process.

So how do we break free from all of this? I think part of it comes with time and with experience, or whatever it takes to make us aware of what we are really doing. Eventually we might find ourselves unhappy in a relationship and we will seek answers as to why that is the case. Or maybe we’ll hear a story of someone else’s realization of losing, and then finding, their true selves and that will eventually uncloud our vision. Once we become aware of our tendencies to ignore problems and to ignore what we truly want in a relationship, we are more likely to recognize when we are about to change ourselves for the sake of someone else. Hopefully, with that awareness, we will be able to avoid entering into the same cycle of behavior with every new relationship, and instead to evolve into people who are more aware of themselves. When that is the case, we are more likely to enter into healthier relationships and to become happier people in general. It takes time and probably a bit of heartache, but if we manage to learn from our experiences and make an effort to make better decisions in the future, that should be considered to be great progress.

These days, we’re surrounded by celebrities and other public figures who are obsessed with their outer images and how they look to everyone else watching them. They spend exorbitant amounts of money on the latest fashions, cars, parties and other status symbols to show the world how rich, famous and powerful they are. They hang out at all the exclusive clubs and restaurants and are quick to let us know that they are close friends with other rich, famous and cool people.

I would guess that many celebrities feel like they have to constantly work to impress everyone that’s watching them. After all, Hollywood and the music industry rely heavily on external beauty and public opinion to make their money. So if you aren’t beautiful and cool, it’s hard to succeed in these fields. Actors and music artists want people to like them so much that they (or their PR people) will do just about anything so they win the love and admiration of the public. Sure talent still counts for something, especially in sports, but the pressure seems overwhelmingly high for public figures to show that they deserve our adoration.

That’s why it’s so incredible to watch someone like 22-year-old tennis champion Rafael “Rafa” Nadal seemingly shrug off all the media attention and hype that is focused on him. With all of the interviews and flashbulbs that he comes into contact with every day, he somehow manages to remain humble and so utterly normal. Maybe it’s because his family instilled an amazing work ethic and a sense of humility in him or maybe he was just born with it, but whatever it is, I’m grateful to be able to witness it.

Earlier this year, when he beat number-one-ranked Roger Federer to win the 2008 French Open he actually apologized to Federer for beating him. No he didn’t do anything wrong, and no one would ever have suggested that he had anything for which to apologize, but he did it because he felt compassion and respect for his opponent. His apology wasn’t a sign of weakness or an indicator of low self-esteem. He simply felt appreciation for the fact that Federer is an amazing competitor and that losing doesn’t feel good for anyone. That’s why he apologized.

It is clear that Rafa is not entirely comfortable with all of the attention he’s getting. In fact, in his latest blog post, he talks about an incident where he was “attacked” by paparazzi during his recent stay in London and how he disliked their invasion of his privacy. From what I’ve heard reported, he lives a normal, quiet life in his hometown of Mallorca, Spain with his family and friends and he likes it that way. I hope that he is able to continue to do so with his continuing success and his rise in fame.

This Sunday, when he beat Federer to win the 2008 Wimbledon title, as he accepted his trophy, he said “I am very happy for me, but sorry for him, because he deserved this title, too. He’s still No. 1, still the best, still a five-time champion“. It is so rare to ever hear athletes, not only talk with such humility and respect for their opponents, but to do so in a way where everyone knows that he truly feels that way in his heart and he really means what he’s saying.

Often when Rafa is interviewed before matches, he is asked things like “Your opponent’s game seems to have been slipping lately, so do you expect this match to be easier than the last time you played him?”. Without fail, though, every time Rafa responds with respect for his opponent’s game and he says that he needs to play his best tennis to win. Against anyone. We can just tell from his demeanor that this guy is real and down-to-earth and he easily wins the public’s admiration for exactly that reason. And Rafa didn’t have to spend a dime.

We need more people like Rafa Nadal in the public eye to serve as role models. More people need to see that honest, sincere, compassionate, hard-working, simple and easy-going people can be just as admired, if not more admired, than the celebrities we see that are practically jumping in front of cameras. That’s not to say, of course, that people with money can’t also have these qualities, but maybe a lot of those people are under too much pressure to put on an exterior facade to hide their true selves, because they think that is what it takes to be accepted. Maybe we need to figure out what it is that keeps Rafael Nadal’s feet planted so firmly on the ground and learn from it.

The thing that we need to realize is that we’re basically paralyzing ourselves by being so scared of the unknown. Our fear causes us to limit our experiences to only those few that we feel that we can control. We’re missing out on all kinds of things that could teach us about so much about ourselves, like how we act under pressure and how our minds work in less structured situations. Maybe we’re really good at it! Or maybe we’re really bad at it, but we can learn to get better. We’ll never know if we never try.

Without uncertainty, life is just the repetition of outworn memories. There’s no evolution in that, and when there is no evolution, there is stagnation, entropy and decay. – Deepak Chopra (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success)

Sure, there’s always the risk of screwing something up or of flat-out failure, but most failures aren’t going to kill us. In fact, we may be able to learn more about ourselves from our failures than any carefully planned-out activity. Oops! That didn’t work, so we’ll do it differently next time! I mean, how much is it really going to matter if we don’t plan our two-week vacation down to the minute? Yes, it’s possible that we may miss out on some “must-see” attractions that we wanted to squeeze in, but maybe it would be more fun to just wing it, for once. Just think of the adventures we could have by keeping an open mind and just going with the flow. We could experience some amazing things that very few, if any, other people get to do. Of course it’s possible that we’ll get lost in our wanderings, but maybe we’ll find something amazing that we didn’t know about at our unexpected destination. Most likely, we’ll be able to come out of these unplanned experiences just fine, as long as we remember to use common sense.

I’ve always admired those people who are able to dive head-first into unknown situations and who are able to take a “let’s figure it out as we go along” attitude. But, getting to that point from a “control freak” status takes some doing. It is often suggested to us scaredy-cats that we just do something where it is quite possible that we might fail, but that the failure would be relatively inconsequential. Like, maybe we’ve been wanting to try a new restaurant in an unfamiliar part of a big city. We may have avoided even attempting to get there in the past because we’re scared of getting miserably lost and wasting time. Well, we should pick a day when we have no other commitments so that the time issue is no longer a factor. Then we fill up the gas tank and take a map, a GPS navigation system or another person who can help us find our way there. If we get lost, we use the tools we have to figure it out or we stop and ask for help. Yes, it will be pretty stressful for those of us who are not used to not knowing exactly where we are and exactly where we’re going, but it won’t kill us.

I know that we control freaks have a tendency to start worrying about the “what-ifs” in these kinds of situations before they even begin, but that’s exactly what the problem is. We worry about things that haven’t even happened yet and may not even happen. We just need to learn to relax a bit and see how things turn out. If we have the intellect and skills to plan our lives in excruciating detail, we certainly have the skills to make good decisions, even on the fly. We just need to learn to trust ourselves and our abilities. Most likely, everything will end up being just fine. Just start by taking baby steps and we’ll be jumping off of airplanes in no time! Ok, maybe not.

If we limit ourselves because of fear, we can potentially miss out on getting to know who we really are and what we’re capable of doing. If we don’t ever encounter any new experiences, we limit our intellectual, emotional, spiritual growth as human beings and life can get pretty dull that way. Maybe by allowing ourselves to take more risks and trying new things with less fear, we can break out of our mundane lives and develop into better people than we are now.

This book is based on a high-school commencement speech that Ms. Shriver gave to her nephew’s graduating class. With this book, she does an amazing job at communicating the message that who you are is just as important as, if not more important than, what you are. Especially when we’re young, we spend so much time trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up and, essentially, how we want to look to the outside world. Usually, that means we try to figure out what career-path we want to take, and sometimes superficial things like how much money we’ll make, or how famous we’ll be play big parts in that process. Ms. Shriver, though, wants to teach us that it’s just as important to think about the kind of person you want to be: what you truly believe in as well as what your passions and dreams are:

The only way to find a life of meaning and joy is to find your own voice, find your own path, follow your own heart, and live your own life, not an imitation of somebody else’s. -Maria Shriver

Figuring out who we are is not an easy task, and since we change over time, we need to constantly reevaluate who we are now and what we want to become in the future. Too often, though, we get caught in the trap of believing that what others think of us is who we are. Ms. Shriver touches upon the fact that a lot of people depend on material items or other superficial traits to define their own value: “I have this cool designer bag, therefore, I am special. People will look at me and my bag and be jealous because they don’t have one.” or “I am famous and I’ve won all of these awards, so that means that people like me and so I must be special.” Unfortunately, as Ms. Shriver tells us, the value of these superficial items and titles fade over time and, at that point, if we haven’t figured out who we are, we can be left feeling empty and unfulfilled.

As you can tell from my previous posts, that emptiness and lack of fulfillment sound particularly familiar to me. That’s where I am now. I am trying to figure out who I am because I haven’t taken the time to figure it out before now. It brings me great comfort to know that with this “awakening” that I’m going through, I seem to be heading in the right direction. Other people have gone through this same “crisis” and have found happiness and fulfillment as a result! That is incredibly exciting to me!

If you can’t tell by now, I highly recommend this book to anyone, whether you’re going through a similar “Who am I?” phase or not. People of any age can find value in Ms. Shriver’s advice, and the best thing is that it’s never too late to change ourselves. This book is a short read, it’s less than 100 pages, and it can probably be finished in an hour or two, so please check it out! For me, it was wonderful to find out that I’m not alone in my search for meaning and that I’m actually kind of on the right track! After reading this little book, I find myself even more inspired to figure out what it is that I’m meant to do here, and I’m thankful to Ms. Shriver for this bit of reassurance and direction at a time when I really needed it!

Being rejected is no fun. The feelings of inadequacy, shame, and disappointment that are brought about by rejection are difficult to bear and often send us running away with our tails between our legs. It’s hard to bounce back from being told that we’re “not good enough” and sometimes that there’s no way we’ll ever be good enough. No one wants to be rejected, so it’s only natural that we do our best to not let it happen to us.

The problem is that opportunities for rejection are everywhere: trying out for sports teams, applying for jobs, applying for college, and these days kids can be rejected from exclusive nursery schools before they reach their toddler years. Romantic rejection or social rejection (being outcast by peers) can sometimes be even more emotionally devastating. It’s no wonder we’re scared.

These days, I wonder if our fear of rejection is even more extreme than in the past because of its prominence in reality television. With shows like American Idol, it’s actually become fun to watch people be told that they aren’t good enough. Viewers often watch the earliest rounds of the competition to see just how Simon Cowell, the judge generally regarded to be the most cruel, will put contestants down. Shows like Survivor and The Bachelor actually have formalized ceremonies where rejection takes place. Producers try to build suspense and emotion with each rejection with dramatic music and creative camera work to show the conflict, anxiety, and fear in the contestants’ eyes. Often the rejecters are asked to talk about why a certain person is being eliminated which often adds an additional sting to an already emotional and hurtful situation. It isn’t uncommon to see reality contestants cry, yell obscenities or become enraged after being eliminated from competition and viewers are entertained when they see these reactions. In a way, reality television has magnified our fear of rejection and has actually glorified the act of rejecting people.

For most people, being rejected is a serious blow to the ego and sometimes to the heart as well. It hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot. For this reason, most of us try to avoid it at all costs. For instance, in my last post, I discussed how many people try to conform to what they believe an interviewer expects of them when interviewing for a job. Why is that? Yes, usually because we want the position, but also because we want to avoid being rejected. In social situations, we sometimes shy away from approaching someone who we think is out of our league because we think our chances of “success” are slim. Some kids will only wear certain clothing because they know that those who don’t aren’t “cool”. Some children will push themselves to get good grades or marry a certain kind of person because they are afraid of being rejected by their families if they don’t. Some parents give in to almost every one of their child’s whims because they fear that when a child says “I hate you”, that they will actually mean it.

We fear being put down by those with the “power” of rejecting us, so we find ways to cope with these feelings. For some of us, this fear takes over and shapes our behavior so that we act in ways in which we might not otherwise behave. We say, do, and wear things because if we don’t, we won’t fit in or someone will think that we’re beneath them. Some people build emotional walls around themselves and claim that even if they are rejected, it does not and can not hurt them.

Most of the methods that we use to deal with the fear of rejection are a way of covering up our true selves, whether it be by over-conforming to an extent that we forget about what we really feel or by denying our feelings all together. These are relatively easy ways to deal with fear.

A more difficult technique often taught by spiritual teachers such as Deepak Chopra, is to learn to not be influenced by things that are outside of us, like other people. We must learn to know who we really are inside and when that occurs, we will know that other peoples’ opinions of us do not define us. When we don’t know who and what we truly are, we depend on the approval of others to determine our self-worth. That dependency controls us and creates fear within us. When we learn to separate our socially programmed outer selves from our true inner selves, fear, including the fear of rejection, has less of an influence on us. (For more discussion on these ideas, read “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” by Deepak Chopra.)

Though it may be easier to understand this concept when it is written down, it can be extremely difficult to put into practice in our own lives. When I first learned of the idea of the difference between my “true self” and my “self-image”, it made sense in my head. However, in everyday life, making the separation between the two is very difficult because many of us have put so much stock in what other people think of us for all of our lives. In most cases, this habit of defining ourselves from outside of ourselves was not a never conscious choice on our parts, and has now become an automatic default. Breaking this pattern is certainly not easy. But the first step is to be aware of the idea, and with strength and practice, we can overcome the fear that has been holding us back from living as we truly should.

I was trying to think of a good example of how we feel pressure to conform to what other people expect of us. I wanted to write about a situation to which most people can easily relate. Then, one day it came to me: the job interview.

Think about it. From the moment we see or hear about a job opening that interests us, we begin to think about how to convince the powers-that-be that we’re the perfect fit for the position. Sometimes we obsess over what the employer wants from us so much that we forget about what we want from a job. We fill our resumes with buzz-words that we think will catch their attention. We do research on what resume format is the most effective in highlighting our qualifications for the prospective employer. We carefully compose our cover letters to glorify our skills and to show how our experience makes us the best candidate for their job.

What about if we’re lucky enough to get called for an interview? Well, then it’s time to choose just the right outfit! A nice sensible suit would probably be the right choice. We don’t want to dress too casually and have them think that we’re not serious about making a good impression. Unless, of course, we know that the company is pretty laid-back. You know, the kind where people run around in jeans and sneakers? If we wear a suit to interview at that kind of company, will they think we’re too serious or snooty to work with them? What should I wear to show them that I am the right choice for the job? (OK, so maybe women think about this more than men…)

Then we get to the actual interview and it’s time for the questions. We’ve become programmed by job search sites and career advisers to answer the questions the way we think the employer wants us to answer them. What carefully-worded-answers will better our chances of getting the job? In some cases, answering questions honestly could jeopardize our chances. For instance, what do we do if we’re convinced that we really want a job and the interviewer asks “How do you feel about working overtime in the evenings and on weekends?”? We know that we’re supposed to answer something like “I am incredibly dedicated to the goals of this company and I would be happy to work as much and as hard as necessary to reach those goals.” when maybe our honest answer would be “Actually, I’d really like to keep evenings and weekends free to relax, re energize and spend time with my family/friends/dog/hobbies.” Noooo! If we don’t surrender our free time to them, then we’re not seen as team-players. Yes, there are some companies where we’d be happy to work overtime, but why do we feel pressure to say we would even when we wouldn’t?

I understand that there are times when we just need to find any job to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. Also, at a time like now when the economy is weak and the job market is suffering, we aren’t always faced with many job options. In those cases, you just do what you need to do to survive. No argument there.

My point is, though, that if we feel that we have to get a specific job, many of us try to morph ourselves into whatever we think will get us that offer of employment no matter what. I have been guilty of this in many past job interviews. So then what happens if we get the job? If we have created a facade of a perfect worker in order to get hired, we probably need to keep up the image to be successful in the position. That isn’t always easy, and it can put us under a lot of strain. Sometimes we have to bury what we really want out of a job because we need the paycheck, or we have to stick it out to get into another position, or because we feel that we just have no other options.

I know so many people who are unhappy in their jobs, but they don’t make a change. Maybe the fact that we don’t pay enough attention to what we want when job hunting is part of the problem. Maybe we’ve conformed so much and for so long that we no longer know what we truly want. We only know what we’re supposed to want and who we’re supposed to be as employees. Why aren’t we more inquisitive in interviews about what it would be like to work at a company? A lot of times, we don’t want to ask too many questions because we don’t want to seem like we’re too hard to please. So, we take jobs that might not be what we really want and it’s difficult for us to find happiness there.

I’m also fortunate enough to know a few people who are in jobs that they absolutely love. Their enthusiasm for their work is evident in the way they talk about their projects and the time that they happily spend on the job. Their work is clearly a part of them and every accomplishment brings them joy and motivates them to a new higher goal. It’s inspiring to watch these people, really, and to know that that kind of happiness and fulfillment is possible. I’ll admit, I haven’t quite gotten to my “dream job” yet. In fact, I don’t even know what my dream job is, but I do feel like I’m making progress in the right direction.

Now, I’m at least aware of how I’ve been conforming to employers’ expectations and disregarding my own. I know that’s why, in the past, I’ve ended up in jobs I didn’t enjoy or that didn’t motivate me. In my future job searches, I plan to pay a lot more attention to what I need in a workplace to make me happy. After all, I feel that I’d be a lot more productive in a place where my level of job satisfaction is high, and that benefits both me and my employer.

Learning how to deprogram ourselves from something we’ve done for so long is a difficult task. Even just being aware of the problem is not enough. It’s going to take a great deal of conscious thought, effort and practice but, for me, the potential self-satisfaction and happiness are well worth it.

Until relatively recently, I spent most of my effort in life working hard to accomplish the prosperity and happiness promised by the “American Dream“. Amazingly, I was one of the ones who actually managed to find a decent level of prosperity. The thing is, though, that even when I had reached that point, the happiness still eluded me.

For a long time, I didn’t understand why I wasn’t happy because my life had turned out exactly as I had planned, exactly as it was supposed to turn out. I had done everything according to the timeline that I had developed for myself and ended up with exactly what I thought I needed to be happy: the family, the house, the respectable career, the cars, the material objects and enough of an income to live as comfortably as I wanted. It was the perfect picture. I had everything and yet I still felt that I was missing so much. What had I done wrong?

Recently, I came to the realization that, at least for me, it was my goals that were faulty and not what I did to reach them. I thought about why it was that I thought that this “perfect picture” would bring me happiness and I now see that it was because that’s what we’re all taught to believe. We watch people on TV and in the movies, and more often than not, it’s the ones with the money and material objects that are the happiest. We see the gorgeous people with the big houses, fancy cars and great lives and we think that if we only had those things, we’d be happy too. If we could get the perfect good-looking partner along with the genius kids, the dog and the house with picket fence, what more could we want? These are the ideas and pictures we’re surrounded by every day and it’s no wonder that many of us end up falling for it hook, line and sinker.

I now see that I spent so many years of my life trying to be what everyone else in the world told me to be. I’ve definitely been influenced by TV, movies, and other media but also by family, teachers, advisers and friends. Those closest to me, no doubt, wanted the best for me, and they gave advice based on what they believed would bring me success. So, being constantly bombarded with ideas of who I should be and what I should do, I set my sights on all of these goals that I now realize really weren’t my own. I didn’t spend enough time trying to get to know myself and the things that truly make me happy. It got to a point where I would look in the mirror and I could only see an artificial reflection of a person that I thought I should be. I had conformed to the images and ideas of perfection to the best of my ability but I could no longer see who I really was. I realized that view of my true self was clouded and had been for most of my life.

So, I’ve begun on a journey to try and get a better view of who I really am. I’m trying to weed through all of those exaggerated and/or false ideas of perfection and material wealth as well as other superficial values that we’ve been convinced that we want. Here, with this blog, I hope to explore what forces influence our self-images, how we’re impacted by them and, if possible, how we can begin to lessen their effects on us.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and I’ll probably get more that a few things wrong in my posts. For me, though, this is an important learning process and mistakes are to be expected. Comments, questions and any other thoughts on these topics are not only welcome, but would be greatly appreciated. I’ve found that I learn most in my dialogues with others, so I look forward to hearing from anyone willing to share what they think. Thanks so much for reading!