You Have No Reputation
You have no reputation that you own.
“It’s my reputation!”
This exclamation felt really weird when I heard it. A friend had been slandered and was preparing corrective action. Their cry didn’t sound like the real them, more like the words of someone else. Indeed it was probably another of society’s hand me downs.
But this particular statement stuck with me and felt really strange. What was this thing that had been wounded and required retribution?
I started asking myself questions.
I wonder what my reputation is?
Do I have a reputation?
Everybody has a reputation whether good or bad. What defines a reputation?
Well a reputation is a concept we have of ourselves. No wait! Our reputation is what other people think of us.
If this is true then we never own a reputation, we can never go on a holy crusade to reclaim it.
Our reputation is always subject to the whims and fancies of everyone else. In fact, because everyone has a different reputation of us (did you read that as representation…?) there is no coherent definition of our reputation that we can ever know.
If you choose to care about your reputation then you will forever be chasing the people who run off and try to burn the scarecrow you hide behind.
I understand the social/economical/etc. consequences of a bad reputation and as such you can take what action you see fit to make it fit reality.
But as long as any shred of your happiness relies upon a concept held in the minds of other people you will suffer and happiness will escape you.
So if I have your reputation allow me to put it on a piece of paper and give it to you. This way you will know that reputation was never yours to begin with and you are holding onto something outside of yourself.
What Now
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January 13th, 2010 at 1:35 am
This is a fantastic article Jarrod! I remember going to a talk by Bob Adamson, he took it one step further. If everyone else’s image of us is just an image, what about our own image of ourselves? Do we need a self-image (or self-reputation)? What happens if we don’t have one anymore?
January 13th, 2010 at 8:10 am
@Albert: This is good for me to think/feel about, thankyou.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:09 am
I’ve never quite looked at it this way. There’s a lot of truth in that. If we told everyone who believes they have a bad reputation that they don’t…well it would free them up to believe in themselves again!
January 13th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
What your friend was worried about was what he thought everyone else thought of him through his filter of himself… so then he really does own his reputation doesn’t he??? Whether he is correct about the way other people see him or not, it really is his idea of himself that has him concerned… I think.
I’m not disagreeing with you that what other people think of us is none of our business. I find that people don’t tend to think even half as much about us as we think they do anyway, and those that do are really just so boring anyway aren’t they????
Simplistic I guess, but I’m pretty happy… most of the time!
January 13th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
@Tess: Yes I hope a new viewpoint can give people another way to see themselves.
@Deborah: Indeed you are correct Deborah. If you like it is the reflective reputation of our reputation held by others.
But there is no bonus to happiness to hold a reputation of ourselves. Reputation is for others to pass quick judgment on us, we know ourselves better than any reputation so it’s useless to us.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Hey Jarrod,
Cool concept. A good friend of mine is a political blogger and he’s used to getting slandered and if anything it’s helped build his ‘reputation’ for being a competant adversary, so to speak. His thoughts are though that he’s knows he can’t please everyone so he doesn’t even try. He writes according to his beliefs and doesn’t worry about the reputation he establishes, he just goes for it.
A valueable lesson indeed!
January 16th, 2010 at 7:45 am
@Amit Sodha: Yes I can see how playing that sort of role would require that. I think the key to it all is to just be true to yourself without expecting anything in return. To do this is amazing.