I salute you all.
Today let's talk about what is important to live for, between image and identity. In doing so I would like to begin with series of questions. Between the two which one is important to you? Do you live for your image or from your identity? What shapes your decisions, actions and daily routines, is it the image you want to impress on people or the identity you possess?
In the book the Community of the future, Dave Ulrich said " In the psychology world, our identity represents how others perceive our career, personality, and behavior "
He goes on and adds this" in the organization world, identity represent the image of the company as perceived by those inside and outside. An organization identity may be centered around purpose, value, or some other distinguishing feature of the company.
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Whether in psychology or in organizational world, the common factor about image is this, image is subjective. Your image is determined by an individual perception of the facts about you. It is like beauty, the say it lies in the hands of the beholder. This is a serious weakness about image, you do not determine its reality in other people's eyes and mind. People always come up with their own conclusion about what is true as they interact with you, or as the watch you interact with other people and things. No matter how much best you may present yourself to people, you will never receive positive reviews from all the people. Your presentation cannot survive the masses.
Nevertheless you will always win some. My concern is not about how many you win or how many you loose. It is about how you live your life. If you live too much consumed with what people think or what is the image people have about you, the you are sabotaging your true identity. Your originality and your joy. Because you will never impress all the people. Always there would be people of different opinions.
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Identity is not a subjective judgement as it is image, identity is the raw facts about you. Identity is what we call it is what it is? You have it through nature and nurture. It is not an opinion. When you work out your life from this angle, your life become fulfilling and never under pressure to impress people. Even if not all things may be positive about your identity, but you can dealing with them better if your life is lived from inside out.
You do not simply cover up things to save your identity, but you deal with them in a proper way.
Your talent, passion, personality and experiences are part of your identity. Can image living forsaking one of these, how miserable it is. Because all of these are connected to your being. Image is an edited version of you, you show people what you want them to think, believe and treat you.
When you live your life focused on your public image, the people you win will hate you when they get to interact with the real you. This is the very reason today we have so many trouble in all types of relationship because people are wearing masks to give a fake impression of their personality so that they can be accepted.
Nevertheless, I do not mean we should not be careful with what we portray to people with our lives, off course we should be concerned. But not disparate, and not at the expense of our identity. What is the use of showing people the things that we think they will give us a positive image when in reality we are total divorced from that image in our private spaces.
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Work had to live your true self, fight for that, die for that. Do not mind so much about your image, once you take care of your identity you do not need to worry about your image. Your image should not determine your identity but let your identity shape your image that is the best way to live and die if needed.
Pretending being rich when your not won't help you in a long run, pretending successful when your not it won't give you success. Pretending your life is together when every thing is falling away it won't help you, such things will bring you shame and more pain to you than saving you identity. When people know the real you, they can relate better with you. This is my message for you friends.
Thank you for reading and upvoting.
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