We all have traits that define who we are to those around us. Some are positive and some are negative, and the way people perceive us depends on which of those traits they see in us the most, along with their own personal filters of how they view their world.
First impressions, commonalities, prejudices, and likes/dislikes tend to influence how we see each other, and each interaction we have has the potential to reinforce, or to change how someone else feels about us. Unfortunately, positive and negative things do not always carry equal weight. Dozens of positive moments can be undone by a single negative interaction, but the reverse is not usually true.
Additionally, once a person has made judgments about who they think we are, that impression of us can become pretty solidly cemented in their minds. I have seen this in the way family members that were with me during my growing up years still focus on weaknesses that I overcame long ago and paint me with that brush. Despite the passing of decades and change in me as a person, they are unable to let go of that perception of me. But how they remember me, is not necessarily accurate as to who I am now. That can happen in any relationship and can be caused by distance, drifting apart, misconceptions that we have about others, or the way we choose to view them. A lot of our negative feelings towards others can be overcome if we apply compassion to the lens we are looking at them through.
For many years I have felt the weight of how temporary so much of life is. One of the few consistent things is change. Relationships evolve. Children grow up. Parents grow old. People move away or just drift apart. Accidents happen, and every day, each of us is that much closer to the end of our lives. When we find ourselves apart from our loved ones, what we have left is a distilled version of them in our minds and our hearts. We take the most important parts of who they were or are to us as we continue on.
As I have reflected recently on love and on loss, I have been wondering about the kind of person I want to be remembered as. What would friends and family take from their experiences with me if we had to part? We all have shortcomings, and many of us are very aware of our own. But we get to choose daily the way we want to be remembered. While we can't really control how anyone else views us, we can make choices that are aligned with the kind of people we most want to be.
Those who know me best know that I am a worrier, and somewhat of a pessimist, and while those are both qualities I carry around with me, they are not how I want to be remembered. This is not to say that I want to lie about who I am. But the choices I make shine a light on which aspects of me I am trying to embrace and which I am trying to set aside. I get to decide which parts of me I want to develop, and which to let go of. Of course there are moments of weakness. Times when the negative overcomes the positive things I am trying to nurture. Becoming is a process, and sometimes the changes we make are so small up close that we can't see the extent of them in ourselves until we step back and pay attention to their accumulation over time. For every weakness, there is the potential for strength through diligent effort.
So, how do you want to be remembered? Mean or kind? Lazy or industrious? Pessimist or optimist? Flighty or dependable? Backstabbing or trustworthy? Uninspired or creative? Faithless or loyal? Cold or compassionate? Make a conscious choice, and do it for more than just the big, public, things. This isn't politics. It isn't about portraying yourself the way you want people to see you. It is about being authentic to who you want most to be. Who you are now is important, but who you WANT to be is more important. Be that person. One choice at a time.
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