A thought struck me today, and since I can't sleep I have nothing better to do than explore it. I encourage you to seriously consider this in your own minds and hearts as I unfold my thoughts on the subject...

what would happen if we saw ourselves the way other people saw us?*

In other words, imagine that you were able to hear every positive and negative remark that was ever thought or said about you.

Would you be disappointed? Shocked? Pleasantly surprised?
I wonder if we would be moved to action, or paralyzed by the constant bombardment of criticism?
& what if the positive remarks we got greatly overshadowed the negative, would that hinder our growth and dissuade us from fixing anything at all?
What if what others thought about us, good or bad, ran contrary to what we thought of ourselves?Which would we believe?
What if no one even noticed all the positive characteristics we thought we embodied, and only took notice of the negative characteristics?

In a world where other's opinions of you were openly available, I think I know what would happen. Suddenly, what other people thought would be important. So important in fact, it would fuse with our own thoughts and blur the vision we have of ourselves. And if we had the option of choosing whether or not we wanted to know these things? I predict few of us would have the confidence or courage to take it.

What do you think?

*Now that I think about it, I am asking two entirely different questions. If we saw ourselves the way the world saw us, we wouldn't be capable of deciding which characteristics to ascribe to ourselves. We would automatically accept it, and see ourselves as such. Interesting still, but I am more concerned with what would happen if we knew what other's honestly thought about us.