Heard this earlier in the week and fell in love with it, because it's the exact opposite of the way I've been living my life, but it's the exact way I should be living my life.
This is one of those things that I think sound good but don't bear scrutiny. As social beings part of who we are, whether we like it or not, is derived from others. We don't, after all, live in vacuum. Other peoples' opinions have a massive effect on my life. I think one mistake is to try to manage those opinions the other mistake is to ignore them. I tend to go for acknowledging them and, at least trying, to be open to the possibility that sometimes others' opinions about me might actually be more accurate than mine.
Sadly that last bit runs into my other deeply held belief that Bruce is right, especially when talking about himself in the third person. It's at this point that my head starts to steam, I find myself repeating "that does not compute" and notice Captain Kirk grinning smugly at me.
I would say that your advice is sound for anyone who isn't completely off the deep end in the other direction. But I've lived my entire life basing my self-concept on what other people say about me, which can get quite confusing as no one seems to agree.
I've taken trying to please others to such an extreme that it has really crippled me. I pour more energy into trying to make people think/feel what I want them to think/feel about me than I do into actually advancing myself as a human being. So it's nice to have a concise mantra to serve a an antidote to the problem.
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This is one of those things that I think sound good but don't bear scrutiny. As social beings part of who we are, whether we like it or not, is derived from others. We don't, after all, live in vacuum. Other peoples' opinions have a massive effect on my life. I think one mistake is to try to manage those opinions the other mistake is to ignore them. I tend to go for acknowledging them and, at least trying, to be open to the possibility that sometimes others' opinions about me might actually be more accurate than mine.
Sadly that last bit runs into my other deeply held belief that Bruce is right, especially when talking about himself in the third person. It's at this point that my head starts to steam, I find myself repeating "that does not compute" and notice Captain Kirk grinning smugly at me.
I would say that your advice is sound for anyone who isn't completely off the deep end in the other direction. But I've lived my entire life basing my self-concept on what other people say about me, which can get quite confusing as no one seems to agree.
I've taken trying to please others to such an extreme that it has really crippled me. I pour more energy into trying to make people think/feel what I want them to think/feel about me than I do into actually advancing myself as a human being. So it's nice to have a concise mantra to serve a an antidote to the problem.
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