I want to think over this topic well.
Thankfully I like to write out my thoughts and that has always provided a good method of processing what I believe.
Initially I run into the wall of my big masculine ego - “I’m not scared of anything!” - but after I let that go and examine where I have placed my worries and fears over this past week I can see that that’s not true in the slightest.
This will be a candid post, to answer this question and hopefully provide a direction that makes my life, and hopefully yours’ easier down the line.
What am I really scared of… public disapproval. Genuinely, its such a lightweight fear but even posting here and knowing that virtually no one is going to read this, is legitimately worrying for me. I’ve taken myself off most social media and only lately have been stepping further into the weeds and posting, commenting and speaking up. This has been very difficult for me and I want to examine this further.
I love this quote from Chuck Chakrapani
“It is comical that we want the approval of even those we don’t respect.
I’ve always thought the stoic perspective on importance of peoples opinions were extremely relevant for me. Yet the implementation of their practices have always been the hardest. I’ve tried multiple techniques to get over the desire for other people’s validations and I find that I’m still always struck by their dislike, frustration or anger when it gets directed towards me.
I’m being blunt, I get seriously tweaked when people dislike me. That’s partially why the Big Bad Online scares me the most: people can dislike you for no other reason than your profile picture and there is nothing you can do about it.
I think control and desire are the two key reasons for the difficulty. In a one on one conversation I can direct my actions to benefit both myself and the other person, hopefully leaving us with mutual shared benefit and goodwill. If you add several people to the conversation, its trickier but manageable to get them all to like you. Extrapolate that to a 100 people the job is harder than ever. What I find as the numbers grow there is a shift from a consistent personality in public and private life to two different personalities to manage both worlds. I think there is a dividing wall that begins when people start having to manage their public persona and I think the lack of authenticity that can arise - i.e. the steady loss of control over my own character is more likely in greater and less controllable numbers of people.
The second is desire, since I was young I had a natural inkling towards people’s emotions and mannerisms. I quickly learnt that the happier people were the easier it was to get the things that I wanted out of my life. So I would attempt to keep them happy and this became a hyper fixation on attending to other people’s emotions. I truly thought that other people feeling happy was my responsibility. The desire is for people to feel happy and I end up taking full responsibility for their actions.
My solution is a form of exposure therapy targeted at the private life and public life. In the private life, its getting used to disagreeable people, their emotions, frustrations and anger. My current job is probably going to give me a lot of opportunity to do that. The second exposure is to the online space and the potential criticisms (probably imagined) that I may receive. This post is part of that, check out my twitter @JamiesRooooooom for the other part.
I think this is the main point of the stoic life, to attend to my thoughts, actions and behavior and let what happens externally (out of my control) be what it is. This is tough for me, but good to learn. I can take responsibility for my actions and try to keep them consist in the public and private space but I cannot take responsibility for the way I’m perceived. I don’t need to attend to the emotions and feelings of others.
I’m going to be giving some more thought to public persona and what maintaining it could look like.
Chat later,
Jamie