I have a question: Who are we anyway? The only thing I’m sure of is this: I am interior decoratively challenged. Until recently, after five and a half years in my house, the only things I had on my walls were a mirror, a picture of Christ with some children, and legions of marks from crayons, pens, pencils, markers, color pencils, water-color paint, lipstick, sticky fingers, shoes, balls, and anything else that will make a mark.
I guess I had complained about my bare walls one time too many because one day, when she came to pick up her kids who I had been tending, a lady from my ward said, “Let’s hang some pictures!” then she refused to leave until I got her a hammer and a bag of nails. As she eyed my walls with an expert’s eye, I began pulling pictures from behind computer desks and from under couches (at one point she gazed with delight on some watercolor paintings my grandma had done and exclaimed, “Oh! I’m so glad we got your grandma out from under the couch!”). Then away she went, hanging with a will!
I was following her around in an anxious daze, juggling several framed pictures and trying not to be worried that she was hanging away with nary a thought for measuring tape or stud finder, when some of her conversation began to penetrate the fog. I heard things like, “. . . such a good mother . . . never heard . . . raise voice with children . . .” and “ . . . so strong . . .” and “. . . do so much for everyone . . .” and “ . . . own path to the Celestial Kingdom is clearly marked out . . . .” “My!” I thought, “I wonder who this paragon of virtue is that she’s talking about!” Then, after a few more comments I realized that she was talking about me! I just about dropped my pictures and croaked right there. To put it bluntly, I ain’t no paragon.
The above experience brought to mind a question I’ve had for a while: Who are we really? Are we the person we ourselves think we are or are we the person that others think we are? I can tell you right now that I raise my voice at my children far, far too often and I am too often impatient, especially at bedtime (my poor oldest has been heard to say, “Mom, do you even like having children?” Aargh! What a stab to the heart!). I am NOT strong: my sins and weaknesses are legion. I feel that I’m failing miserable in my calling by not even coming close to doing all I need to do and for the past couple of years I have turned off the TV after a wonderful two days of General Conference only to bury my head in a pillow and weep as I try to resign myself to losing my family and living in the Terrestrial Kingdom because I’m just not making the grade here on earth. And yet, apparently, others see me differently.
I’ve asked this question of a few friends and I usually get the answer, “We’re probably a combination of both: how we see ourselves and how others see us.” Okay, I accept that but I can’t help but wonder, how much of which?
I know that we all have “Sunday faces” ”“ the good side of us that we show to the world. Now, I’m not saying that Sunday faces are bad and I don’t think that the “Sunday face” is a deception. It’s just putting our best foot forward, so to speak. I believe our “Sunday faces” are as much of our true selves as, say, the vile worm of our deepest, darkest moments (as is everything in between).
I guess with all of this I’m just trying to find some sort of comfort ”“ some assurance that I am better/stronger than I think I am. I hope the real me is more of how others see me but I fear that I am really - mostly - the way I see myself. Sigh. Oh well. At least I now have pictures on my walls.
So, who are you and how do you reconcile the discrepancy between what others see and what you know to be the truth about yourself?
I actually think the “real” me is who I view myself to be; not the vision that others have. I’m not saying it’s the Mr. Hyde that lurks within all of us anymore than I think it’s the ideal Mormon that I sometimes try to be.
I am what my desires are, I am what my actions are, I am somewhere suspended between what God wants of me and what I want for myself. It’s not clear-cut or suspended in time, but a breathing entity that changes. But, I emphatically think that it has nothing to do with what someone else thinks. That, to me, is scary territory to be in. What if their vision is wrong? And why give them power over my identity?
Didn’t Wilford Woodruff say something like he’d rather be one foot from Hell stepping in the right direction than one foot from Heaven stepping in the wrong direction?
I just want to be pointed in the right direction. I don’t really care how fast I’m moving. I know the church ladies around me think I’m crazy. But line me up in the right direction and let me go. I may take four hundred thousand million years, but I’m facing the right way. Let the church ladies say what they want about the grime on my floor.
I discovered something interesting recently. The book of Mormon prophets felt overwhelmed by their own sins sometimes. I don’t know how I missed that one for so long, but I did. If even Nephi felt that way(2 Nephi 4:18-19) I figure I’m in pretty good company. And if my weaknesses are causing me to turn to Christ and to depend more fully on Him, then I figure they are serving their purpose. They are helping in the process of my salvation. None of us are or will become celestial beings on our own.
I believe in reconcilliation. The Sunday face that one wears all week long. Even if it isn’t as shiny, or as perfect, but it is real. The Sunday-all-week-long is what I strive for.
“Who are we really? Are we the person we ourselves think we are or are we the person that others think we are?”
Since, here in mortality, we all see through a glass darkly, I guess the only one who sees us as we truly are is God. Our challenge, then, is to try to see ourselves as God sees us (and to see others as God sees them).
I think that is more difficult for some of us than it is for others. Some of us focus so doggedly on our own weaknesses and mistakes that we fail to see how magnificent (though imperfect) we really are–how beautiful and strong, how funny and caring and persevering.
Of course, others of us have just the opposite problem.
In the end it doesn’t matter what other’s opinions of us are. They are likely to be both good and bad. We must know for ourselves who we are inside and be reconciled to our diety and our mortality, our potential and our weakness, and struggle to rise.
There’s a cartoon by Randy Glasbergen that says “if someone compliments me, I assume he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But if that person criticizes me, I assume he’s an expert.” We are usually our own worst enemy, and I think we have to learn to sit more in the middle of the see-saw (is that what you call them in the states?) than on one end wailing or wallowing in being so covered in dirt.
One thing that irritates me though, is when women constantly deny what I’m saying about myself. I feel like saying “Hey, it’s the TRUTH, I’m not looking for a compliment!” The Sunday face (or weekly face!) that THEY put on me is as much to everyone’s detriment as mine, as no-one ever finds out who the other woman really is.
Wow - I just delurked, all the way from Oz=)
I had a roommate in college who mentioned the concept of “Lee Press-on Face.” Just as you avoid tacky fake additions to your fingers, steer clear of a counterfeit visage. Real people will recognize you for who you are.
We are kindred spirits. My husband dreads general conference because of the crying I often do at the end. Not spirit-filled grateful crying, no the crying like you mentioned. And I have often wondered the same thing. Why do people think all these great things about me? It’s not about relying solelyl on others’ opinions, it’s more bewilderment at the things they readily and willingly see in my that I am so slow to see in myself. I know that the parts of me that make me cry and feel disappointed are real, but it’s nice to accept some of what others think as real as well. They aren’t all fools, the wool pulled over their eyes. If we can’t start to see the goodness in us that others see, then reallly we are letting Satan win by discouraging us and fooling us. Like someone else said, when I am close to the spirit then I can really start to understand how God sees me, and that’s when I feel my very best. Even if I’m at my worst I feel hope because of the atonement.
“So, who are you and how do you reconcile the discrepancy between what others see and what you know to be the truth about yourself?”
I just consider myself really lucky that some people are fooled.
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything - and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”
I have felt exactly as Sali is describing, and have asked myself that very same question. It has taken years of practicing loving myself with all my short comings the same way the Savior loves me to overcome the feeling of being “less”.
I have some questions myself, for Sali or anyone else who believes in the “Sunday face”. Do you view others the same way you view yourself, with all their shortcomings? Or do you only view yourself with shortcomings? Do you believe other’s have no shortcomings? I can fully testify that you won’t meet a single person in church or outside of church without shortcomings, whether they wear them on the outside or not, they are there.
I had an experience a few months ago that helped me to understand how our Heavely Father views us when a miracle no less happened a Sunday morning that I was to teach a RS lesson. I awoke with no feeling in my legs due to a disease that plagues my body. I was determined not to call a last minute substitute and had to TOTALLY submit my will that day to my Heavenly Father and in doing so his spirit filled me to the brim. I still had no feeling in my legs, but I had strength to stand, and I knew it wasn’t my strength. You might think that was the miracle, but it was not. The miracle was in the moment my body filled with the strength of my Savior I was also filled with light that offered me the ability to see people (and the world) as I had never seen them before. I saw no flaws in peoples faces, their countenances shown forth like the sun at noon. I felt an unmeasurable amount of love for people I had never even met before. I could see love radiating around and toward everyone, and sadly I could also see those who did not receive that love radiating and offered toward them.
I wish I could say I retained that ability and that strength, and believe you me I tried, but life took hold and my will took over and it began to fade a little each day. Dang I wanted it to stay, but failed to submit enough to keep it. I am back to my old self. Lacking yet yearning.
I don’t want to judge anyone, but offer a thought that perhaps there is love radiating toward us that will help us to view ourselves in the way the Savior does and that in doing so will help us to have the power to overcome all things. We are daughters and sons of God and that divine nature is within us. We need to focus our attention on that divine nature and not the natural man born to us with our bodies. Sali I assure you that you really are what that sister saw in you that day. She was seeing you through the Savior’s eyes. I have shortcomings a many, some grevious to my mind, but when I recall the love I felt that day from my Savior I do not doubt he loves me just the way I am and that he loves you the way you are. I have no doubt there is a “Sunday face” but heres to hoping we are all trying to make that Sunday face into an everyday face.