We are how we are perceived by others

Question from the Internet:

“Are people more concerned with how they are perceived or with being who they are?”

We are how we are perceived.

We do not know who we are. We assess ourselves, we build our self-esteem according to how others see us, by constantly comparing ourselves to others.

We have absolutely no ability to “look into an honest” mirror and to see who we are since our own perception of reality is 100% subjective, egocentric, self-justifying. The only way we can see ourselves is through how others perceive us, how they react to us.

We do everything we do to gain respect, stature in the eyes of others and then through that, we raise ourselves in our own estimation. We are constantly driven by our instinctive attributes of envy, jealousy, desire for respect, and today marketing, social and political manipulations widely use this knowledge about human nature.

And as long as we follow our inherent nature we keep destroying, harming each other and ourselves.

There is nothing we can do about this, as this is how we are born.

On the other hand, we can start using our inherent attributes, our constant, inevitable interactions, comparing ourselves to others, even the attributes of envy, jealousy, desire for respect in a purposeful, positive way.

In the right, purposefully created, and methodically used environment we can use everything we have for constructive, qualitatively very different, mutually beneficial goals, purpose.

We just need to learn who we are, what our true nature is, what the components of our nature are and what we can do with them in a wise, purposeful, conscious way to positively develop and grow.