Looking at yourself from whose eyes ?

Dr Sumedha Kushwaha *

Stop looking at yourself from the eyes of others. We have a tendency of thinking and forming opinions about our own selves of how the world sees us. But they know nothing about your battles and fights. Everyone knows just a part of you, a superficial layer beyond which measurement is difficult.

But we start getting farther from our own selves and the issue becomes grave when we keep forgetting who we are and putting our roots on flimsy grounds where there is no soil.

That is when we start losing track of who we are and start to look for mirrors in others to understand who we are. And other’s mirrors are either tinted or dirty or scarred or colored- you don’t know. Their mirrors have been formed by their experiences so when you look at yourself from their eyes, you will always get a distorted image.

You will never get to know who you really are. People spend their lifetimes proving to their parents that they are good sons and daughters and being forever under motivated. Why? Because they never feel enough.

Some husbands are so distressed that they aren’t good. Why? Because the wife always wants more money, the child needs more attention and so on. But that doesn’t make them a bad human being.

If you are also caught in this loop of looking at yourself from the eyes of others- stop doing that. Sit down with yourself and look at yourself through an unadulterated vision. Appreciate at how far you have come.

Life is a journey not a race. If you find someone of 21 years owning a private jet, appreciate his or her journey but don’t immediately put yourself on the weighing scale saying I don’t even have my own car at 35 years.

There is a fine line of being motivated by such experiences or getting depressed. Its upto you to choose which direction you want to go in. But negative reactions are easier to harness and manifest than positive ones. I have observed people being champions in thinking negative- any situation- they don’t fail to be fearful or jealous or guilty or stressed and very conveniently call it practicality.

Pragmatism has shades that we use as per our own convenience and those change with place, persons and situations. But it’s good to be gentle on yourself at times and treat yourself like you would or do treat other individuals. The way to change paradigms that exist is getting to know yourself better.

Start cleaning and polishing your own mirror. Focus on yourself, not on others. People might use you at times, take your money, damage your soul, physically abuse you and mentally traumatize you. But don’t let that affect your inner peace because you let them destroy it- but the responsibility of healing it is solely on you.

Sometimes, people with whom you spent good times ‘change’. Don’t be in the rush to catch up with their pace of moving on. Stay still, just in that position. And give yourself time to heal. Don’t be hasty in trying to mend emotional relationships with people because incomplete healing is defective and always gives place for growth of germs that might further affect your relationships with others as well.

Slow is the new fast. People who haste through things in life- are bound to be slower because they make silly mistakes and repeat and re-repeat the same process. And in the so-called learning from mistakes, they are eating their own time.

On the other hand, well researched and evidence based models which can become leaner are cleaner and more efficient ways of learning. So look into your mirror and understand which is a better way of living for you. But the key here is- do that by polishing your own mirror!