Like Trying to Look Out the Window to See Inside

There is no such thing as objective self-image. Comment and say I'm boring. Maybe I am.

Maybe the definition of boring is relative or arbitrary.

Why does it matter?

It matters because people tend to view themselves by the judgement of other people. If you're in a group, and you get left out of that group, it undermines your worth. You've been judged. You lose self-esteem.

You don't get hired for a job, afterwhile it starts getting depressing. It starts being a commentary on yourself.

Then there is the other side of the coin. The "no one can make you feel bad but you" kind of arguement. The "I'm right if I say I'm right." Make no arguement, it's highly valued by American culture, and it works out better for people with this outlook in the American culture.

The problem is the American culture socializes the first and expects the second. You're judged by your appearance. That's something other people judge. Yet you're better off deciding you like the way you look. Why care about the opinion of other people?

Yet in many cases we are expected to work in groups and to work amongst the opinions of other people. There is a necessary skill to distinguish or at least to make a reasonable value judgement between what you think and what other people think.

So, in the course of daily living, despite the subjectiveness of our own judgements of ourselves, should we be too harsh?

Self-judgement, like the title of this post suggests, is a lot like a person trying to look out a window to see inside a house. You may see reflections of it, sure. They aren't going to be clear. You may make out a general face shape, an eye color, and if the light is just right you might catch a very accurate picture. Yet when the light changes again, the accuracy goes away, and you don't know whether the blurry face is the more truthful picture or the sharp figure you saw briefly for a moment.

We're humans, we trust statistics. In this metaphor, say you believe what you experience most often, the blurry face is the truth. Except it isn't more accurate.

Ultimately, like anything else in a relative universe, value is relative. So the question of how hard one should judge themselves depends upon the benefits, and unfortunately, the benefits are relative to context. If you are rude and unwilling to admit you are rude, then most likely you're going to suffer from it. However if you percieve yourself as a failure, then you're also likely doomed to a series of self-fulfilling prophecies.

It also depends on what matters to you, personally. Do you want to know the truth about yourself? It's a valid question in modern culture. Some people don't. Feel free then to view yourself however you see best fit.

If you do care, then realize that it is a guess at minimum. You will rely on the judgement of other people versus the judgement you give yourself. The best way to go about this is to decide what you think is important, outside of yourself, first. Because it is easy to get bogged down in things such as one's social status as a commentary of their worth. Financial status is another big indicator people like to use. And success. Fame.

You're basically defining the context of value in your life as you see it. Because until you know value, how can you judge value in yourself?

Most people do judge themselves too harshly because they make a list against themselves like a prosecutor when they need to. The crimes of the things they haven't done, the people they haven't impressed, and the jobs they haven't gotten. Some of these things wouldn't have meant anything had they actually obtained them. It's the fact that 'couldn't' is the twin god of 'should' for some people (myself included), and they drive life with the insatiable whip of 'never doing enough'.

There's also the people who judge themselves too harshly and use 'can't', so that graduate students and high school drop-outs are both unhappy with themselves.

The people who are happy with themselves (that strange, rare breed of creature), they are finding that middle ground. They are realizing that they can improve themselves without falling to the prey of being 'not enough'.

There are too many things in life that are subjective for any value to be defined concretely in any terms. We are free to give ourselves whatever value we want, given that we have the strength of will to keep it.

Even after I say all of this, I think it is a precarious situation full of dynamics that happen from that odd angle. Looking out to look in. Without comparisons there is nothing to be relative to. Nothing to be better or worse than. It's a great tragedy that experience is external.