There are no ordinary
people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. – C.S. Lewis
Question: Define your relationship with the way you
want others to perceive you. Effortless? Kind? Assertive? Witty? How might
these desired perceptions enhance your everyday life? How might they hinder it?
Perceptions keep me chasing my tail. Ever since I
remember I have wanted to be a
woman of wit, sass, faith, strength, and attractive vulnerability. Think a
cross between Lorelai Gilmore and the Apostle Paul, an odd combination but
hopefully you can see it. Yet, this is not who I am most of the time. I am more
of the brooding, eclectic, slightly
eccentric, writer type who'd rather stay in and create or read a book
than be around a crowd of people.
My desire to be qualities that I admire gives me motivation to grow, but can
easily push me to loathe the
girl I really am when I am in the crowd. It is another potential cycle of
admiration, idol worship, and detesting the person I am today. I am thankful
for the men and women in my life that inspire me to become, but it can easily
turn into lifting these awesome people up to a place they do not belong.
Admiring souls can become following lives that will never satisfy me.
No matter how much I am not who I want to be, or
thought of in the ways I would like to be, perception is empty. I would love to
be thought highly of and well respected, I do not know many people who don’t. I
have learned that perceptions can be wrong. They can create false realities and
build walls between people stopping them from getting to authentically know
each other. I rather people come to their own perspective of me, but not to the
point they are afraid to know who I am. Perceptions are one of the big things that has kept me from knowing
people and letting them know me in return.
I have a friend who I have “known” (knew her name) for
a long time, but growing up I had a perception of her and I figured I was not
her type of friend. Years later, she is one of my dearest friends. I threw out
what I perceived of her and decided to get to know her for who she is. I am
glad I have her in my life and she is nothing like I had her in my mind, she is
approachable and real and she holds me accountable and vice versa.
This isn’t saying all of your perceptions are going to
lead to budding friendships, but how will you ever know if you do not throw
them out the window and say hi, or bond over a book. You won’t know if you are choking a person with your
preconceived idea of who they are. Perceptions, are nice and I know I want to
be thought of as this awesome, super sass, artistic hero,
but that is not me; and that is ok. I want people to know me and not through
perceptions and vice versa.
If I stay in a place of perception of self and others,
I miss out on reality, the messy reality of my humanity. I am not perfect and I
am not even who I view myself to be, or how I want to be viewed, I have found I
rest somewhere in the middle, even
then I am missing the big picture of who I am. Who I am in God’s eyes, which is
the lens I want to view myself and others
through. But, those perceptions seem
to be the preferred lens of my self-reflection and people watching.
My flesh and spirit pull, the tensions are real in the
fight to view people with open hands and not shaded eyes; the way I struggle to
see myself. Reality or lies. Reality and lies. Reality. Lies. I pray for the divine in a world of reality lies.
- Hannah
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