A Strange Question

One thing I have learnt over the years is that other people’s opinions of you are likely to be restricted by the context in which they meet you. If they meet you professionally they will see the professional side of you. If they meet you socially they will see the social side of you, assuming you have one! If they read something you have written they will see a curated version of you. So, in many ways you are controlling what they might say about you, and therefore their comments are actually a reflection of what you have chosen to share with them.

Why do I say it’s a strange question? Well, what would you do with that opinion? Agree with it, disagree with it or ignore it are your three options. In any of those cases the impact of what they think is simply going to be short term. It doesn’t matter at any deep level what people say about you. Years ago I had a number of friends, as nearly all of us do in our younger days. Now, very few of them probably give me a single thought. Their opinions were very important to me at the time, but the fact that they have no interest in me now shows that those opinions were irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. I have had students who really enjoyed my teaching and students who hated it, more the latter than the former in my last couple of years of full time teaching. They saw me in lessons and made their judgement on me based on two hours a week. They may have made some valid points, but that would have been more by accident than insight. Even my colleagues only saw a curated part of my personality, however long they worked with me. Their opinions would carry more weight, but I would be either unwilling or unable to change anything based on that.

People’s views of you are simply that, their views, and I feel that only my wife sees the full me, so hers is the only view that really counts. I don’t have to ask what she thinks, because she will tell me, and I know that she will do so out of love. If you listen to anyone else’s view other than those closest to you, you are barking up the wrong tree.