ON LOOKING GOOD
If you are browsing
gems and want to quickly determine whether a clear stone is a diamond or not,
there are easy tests you can apply without any special equipment. The popular
test of scratching the stone across glass or metal isn't very reliable, and
might just give you a damaged gem; instead, looking at the way the stone
reflects light or if it fogs up when breathed on, can give you a better
indication of whether or not it's a real diamond.
These tests rule out
recognizable imposters because the tests rely on the way a real diamond refracts
light, conducts heat, and looks up-close. Are there any tests to determine if
people are authentic or not? Are they the same inside as they are seen outside?
As far as a lay person is concerned, I do not think so. When a buyer gets a
fake diamond and realizes that fact at some point of time, he/she is genuinely
put to distress and the seller is whistling with happiness. However as far as
people are concerned fakeness or in-authenticity genuinely harms the seller, by
virtue of stress, depression and a total loss of the state of joyfulness.
Most of us
have a pitiable need for looking good, and almost none of us are willing to face just how much we care about this need – even to the extent of being silly. And trying to look good to the world around does not look good, and oftentimes it can
be seen through .
Just the threat of looking bad, meaning irrational, or being found wrong or naive or silly (or something against whatever image we have made for ourselves), for most of us destroys even the possibility of “Being Authentic” or to put it simply "to be on the outside what we are on the inside."
Just the threat of looking bad, meaning irrational, or being found wrong or naive or silly (or something against whatever image we have made for ourselves), for most of us destroys even the possibility of “Being Authentic” or to put it simply "to be on the outside what we are on the inside."
The need to avoid the embarrassment or humiliation, which we imagine to be the result of looking bad to people, leaves us defensive, justifying all the time or petulant and bad tempered. Unfortunately we behave in this manner at the cost of genuine joyfulness, a state which we were born in.
Delving a bit further into this “Looking
Good” we will look at the way in which we perceive our world and our built in frames of
reference.
Our Perception of the world (or how
we see, feel and interpret the world around us)
The way we look at our world refers to our own thoughts, beliefs, biases, prejudicial religious,
social and cultural bindings, and assumptions. These are
through which we as individuals interpret and interact with the world, other
people, and with our own selves. Everything in one's world is seen
through the lens of one's developed perceptions. In fact what we see through these glasses is the reality for us for one's being. Through this lens is the way the world, others and oneself exist for us and this reality is thus inhibited and molded by our perceptions of the world around us. Therefore going by the same thought and looking at other people, their own perceived realities will be different than yours. If
we look at this simplistically, it can be traced to our learned behavior and
nature. This View of our World is formed through our experiences and people around us
from child hood to date. These experiences could be attributed first to our parents,
siblings, baby sitters, our nanny, may be grandparents if around us, there after
school teachers, friends, peer groups and so on. Till one fine day, maybe after
maturity, we develop a certain world view.
What exactly is 'perception ' .
I will give here, a summary of what is described about perception classically in various books and fora to understand this term easily.
What exactly is 'perception ' .
I will give here, a summary of what is described about perception classically in various books and fora to understand this term easily.
(a) Our perception of something
determines how we relate to that thing.
(b) Perception decides our behavior in
relating. To change behavior perceptions requires to be changed.
(c) Behaviour in addition to action
includes thinking and feeling.
(d) Change in perception can lead to a change
in action, feeling and thinking.
(e) Two persons generally do not see the same thing in the same way.
(f) Perceptions differ due to different data inputs of
the same thing.
(g) Differences in processing the data. ( Depends upon
our learned behaviour and nature)
(h) Reconciliation
can occur by sharing of data and own way of looking at it.
(j) It is a subjective
experience of something hence there is no right or wrong nor can we correct our
perception.
“Our Perceptions build maps in our heads: What things are or realities. What
things should be – Our values. We interpret everything we experience through
these mental maps without questioning their accuracy” Stephen Covey.
How our mind works (in my opinion).
You see that whatever we experience are all thoughts.They could be from the Past, the Present or the Future. Our nature and learned behavior processes these thoughts which lead to emotions. Emotions are the roots of action.
For the same inputs the output in terms of emotions will vary between different people. Seeing something moving on the road, the thought a snake in your path on a starry night will result in an emotion of fear in you. May be you will get ready to run based on your basic instinct of fight or flight. Why? because you have perceived it as a snake and also perceive/ have learnt that snakes are dangerous and a bite is mostly the "end". How ever a snake charmer in your place will be delighted to have found a snake. He will rush forward to grab it. To him its a means of lively-hood. A truck comes by and in the headlights you see the moving thing is nothing but a rope moved by the wind. Now what? You will stomp on the rope and go on your way. Why? Because in your learnt data bank, a rope is harmless, just used to tie things up. All a matter of perception, nature and learnt behavior. You never even thought that it could be something else other than a snake. A matter of perception too. Similarly looking good looks good is a matter of perception. Our perceptions on looking good lead us to being in authentic too so also resulting in multiple stresses and loss of "Joyfulness"
You see that whatever we experience are all thoughts.They could be from the Past, the Present or the Future. Our nature and learned behavior processes these thoughts which lead to emotions. Emotions are the roots of action.
For the same inputs the output in terms of emotions will vary between different people. Seeing something moving on the road, the thought a snake in your path on a starry night will result in an emotion of fear in you. May be you will get ready to run based on your basic instinct of fight or flight. Why? because you have perceived it as a snake and also perceive/ have learnt that snakes are dangerous and a bite is mostly the "end". How ever a snake charmer in your place will be delighted to have found a snake. He will rush forward to grab it. To him its a means of lively-hood. A truck comes by and in the headlights you see the moving thing is nothing but a rope moved by the wind. Now what? You will stomp on the rope and go on your way. Why? Because in your learnt data bank, a rope is harmless, just used to tie things up. All a matter of perception, nature and learnt behavior. You never even thought that it could be something else other than a snake. A matter of perception too. Similarly looking good looks good is a matter of perception. Our perceptions on looking good lead us to being in authentic too so also resulting in multiple stresses and loss of "Joyfulness"
Though people do not agree with me,
I call it a kind of programming or our own operating system (OS) which is our
nature and behavior patterns. We can select an operating system for our
computers, Windows 7, or Unix or whatever we choose to like. However for our
own self, we are running an OS which is not our choice. To put it in another way: World view could be
said as the way we perceive the world, people around us, and our own selves,
through our perceptions which are definitely the result of how we grew up, our
nature and our behavior patterns. These become our frames of reference. Interestingly
someone once said, “If people don’t walk your path, it does not mean that they
are on the wrong one”. Now sit back and think, “How many times have you been a
victim?” Surprised?
Going further
the above paragraph is a part of our thinking mind and may be in conflict with
our inner self. To give an example:
We often hear grownups saying “I am afraid of the dark” please walk with me up to the bus stand. On closer investigation one finds, the person used to be locked up as a baby in a dark bathroom as a punishment for the days misdeeds or something similar. As a grown up, we find that particular fear still persists. Here the inner self tries to tell the thinking mind, that there is nothing to be afraid of the dark, but no, by now there is a communication block between the inner or our true self (sometimes people refer to it as the soul) and the thinking mind. This results in stress and at times can lead to psychosomatic illness too.
We often hear grownups saying “I am afraid of the dark” please walk with me up to the bus stand. On closer investigation one finds, the person used to be locked up as a baby in a dark bathroom as a punishment for the days misdeeds or something similar. As a grown up, we find that particular fear still persists. Here the inner self tries to tell the thinking mind, that there is nothing to be afraid of the dark, but no, by now there is a communication block between the inner or our true self (sometimes people refer to it as the soul) and the thinking mind. This results in stress and at times can lead to psychosomatic illness too.
Digressing a little, there is a remedy for this “Mimulus” which is for “fear due to known causes” in Dr. Bach’s flower Remedies. Surprisingly the use of this remedy has changed people totally. Those who had fear of dogs, closed spaces (Lifts), lizards, cockroaches, mice, of heights, of flying and many others.
Our Perceptual Restraint.
The myriad of experiences one grows through, may they be religious, cultural, social and many others jell into ones nature and behavior patterns and finally contribute to our glasses of perceptions as to how the world is (our world view) and then maybe how it should be. One can understand the above as “Perceptual Restraints”. To further explain “Restraints”. If you go to an Indian village, you will often find a bull tethered with a long rope to a stake dug into the ground. Now as far as the bull is concerned, his reality is only a circle, radius of that circle being the length of the rope he is tied by. Since the bull's experience is limited to that circle, the bull is unaware of the rivers, the oceans and the mountains and the world which exists beyond that circle. This is a classic case of a "Perceptual Restraint". The restraint in this case being the length of the rope.
The myriad of experiences one grows through, may they be religious, cultural, social and many others jell into ones nature and behavior patterns and finally contribute to our glasses of perceptions as to how the world is (our world view) and then maybe how it should be. One can understand the above as “Perceptual Restraints”. To further explain “Restraints”. If you go to an Indian village, you will often find a bull tethered with a long rope to a stake dug into the ground. Now as far as the bull is concerned, his reality is only a circle, radius of that circle being the length of the rope he is tied by. Since the bull's experience is limited to that circle, the bull is unaware of the rivers, the oceans and the mountains and the world which exists beyond that circle. This is a classic case of a "Perceptual Restraint". The restraint in this case being the length of the rope.
If in
the same village a foreigner, a girl, enters wearing shorts, the villagers
might stone her, or hand her over to the police for indecency. The villagers
cannot accept this clothing because they are experiencing a cultural restraint, although by no means it will be called indecent in her country.
People say that when in Rome do as the Romans do. Yes true but that is for
different reasons, another story.
Revealing for yourself your perceptual restraints through which you see the world, your true inner self and the public facade you use.
You must honestly and in an unbiased manner examine for yourself the foundations of your perceptual glasses and frames of reference through which you perceive as to who you are for yourself, relative to who you are for others. In short expose to yourself consciously, your true inner self and your external facade as exhibited for others. If you do this genuinely you will be shocked. Surprisingly, you will find that this awareness by itself (without further effort) relaxes a whole lot of restraints which shape the way of your being and acting imposed by your prevailing way of looking at the world and your frames of reference. As a consequence, when you are living your normal life, or being a mother/father, or a wife/husband, or being an executive, or when you are being a leader, these restraints and through them the shaping imposed on your freedom to be and act are relaxed. Saying the same thing from another view point, such awareness increases your available opportunities for being and perceiving, imagining, creating, thinking, planning and acting. This results in a dramatically enhanced capability, capacity and importantly an inner joyfulness for living your normal life, or being a mother/father, or a wife/husband, or being an executive, or when you are being a leader.
You must honestly and in an unbiased manner examine for yourself the foundations of your perceptual glasses and frames of reference through which you perceive as to who you are for yourself, relative to who you are for others. In short expose to yourself consciously, your true inner self and your external facade as exhibited for others. If you do this genuinely you will be shocked. Surprisingly, you will find that this awareness by itself (without further effort) relaxes a whole lot of restraints which shape the way of your being and acting imposed by your prevailing way of looking at the world and your frames of reference. As a consequence, when you are living your normal life, or being a mother/father, or a wife/husband, or being an executive, or when you are being a leader, these restraints and through them the shaping imposed on your freedom to be and act are relaxed. Saying the same thing from another view point, such awareness increases your available opportunities for being and perceiving, imagining, creating, thinking, planning and acting. This results in a dramatically enhanced capability, capacity and importantly an inner joyfulness for living your normal life, or being a mother/father, or a wife/husband, or being an executive, or when you are being a leader.
Be Authentic
Being authentic is being and acting coherent with how you look at yourself on the inside and the facade (may call it as pretense) you put up for others on the outside. If these two are not congruent you are being in-authentic. This includes allowing others to hold you or see you or perceive you in a way you are not. The path to genuineness is being authentic about your differences in the way you really are and in the way you put up a facade on the outside. In other words face your in-authentic persona.
Are You Being Authentic?
Most of us think of ourselves as being authentic. However, each of us in certain situations, and in certain ways, is inauthentic, probably all the time. Since we always avoid at all costs facing our in-authenticities, we are consistently in a state of being inauthentic or non genuine, not only with others, but with ourselves as well. The point is, you are inauthentic and you don’t know that you are being inauthentic. This is because over a period of time your facades become a reality for you. That is human nature. It also means that you have started fooling yourself that your facade for others is the real you. That’s truly foolish and sure as sunrise will result in joylessness at some point not too far off.
Here is something interesting: Sartre's novels are perhaps the easiest access to this mode of describing authenticity: they often contain characters and antiheroes who base their actions on external pressures—the pressure to appear to be a certain kind of person, the pressure to adopt a particular mode of living, the pressure to ignore one's own moral and aesthetic objections in order to have a more comfortable existence. His work also includes characters who do not understand their own reasons for acting, or who ignore crucial facts about their own lives in order to avoid uncomfortable truths; Typically, authenticity is seen as a very general concept, not attached to any particular political or aesthetic ideology. This is a necessary aspect of authenticity: because it concerns a person's relation with the world, it cannot be arrived at by simply repeating a set of actions or taking up a set of positions.
All of us want to be admired and almost none of us is willing to face how much we want to be admired, and how easily we will fail being straightforward and completely honest in a situation where we perceive doing so threatens us with a loss of admiration. Unfortunately wanting to be admired “at all costs” is a typical learned behavior. We will do anything to be admired and the loss of authenticity seems a small price to pay, especially when you are not even aware that you are being inauthentic or non genuine, even if you did, are unaware that being inauthentic costs you your inner joyfulness and results in stress, depression and a number of psychosomatic ailments.
Most of us think of ourselves as being authentic. However, each of us in certain situations, and in certain ways, is inauthentic, probably all the time. Since we always avoid at all costs facing our in-authenticities, we are consistently in a state of being inauthentic or non genuine, not only with others, but with ourselves as well. The point is, you are inauthentic and you don’t know that you are being inauthentic. This is because over a period of time your facades become a reality for you. That is human nature. It also means that you have started fooling yourself that your facade for others is the real you. That’s truly foolish and sure as sunrise will result in joylessness at some point not too far off.
Here is something interesting: Sartre's novels are perhaps the easiest access to this mode of describing authenticity: they often contain characters and antiheroes who base their actions on external pressures—the pressure to appear to be a certain kind of person, the pressure to adopt a particular mode of living, the pressure to ignore one's own moral and aesthetic objections in order to have a more comfortable existence. His work also includes characters who do not understand their own reasons for acting, or who ignore crucial facts about their own lives in order to avoid uncomfortable truths; Typically, authenticity is seen as a very general concept, not attached to any particular political or aesthetic ideology. This is a necessary aspect of authenticity: because it concerns a person's relation with the world, it cannot be arrived at by simply repeating a set of actions or taking up a set of positions.
All of us want to be admired and almost none of us is willing to face how much we want to be admired, and how easily we will fail being straightforward and completely honest in a situation where we perceive doing so threatens us with a loss of admiration. Unfortunately wanting to be admired “at all costs” is a typical learned behavior. We will do anything to be admired and the loss of authenticity seems a small price to pay, especially when you are not even aware that you are being inauthentic or non genuine, even if you did, are unaware that being inauthentic costs you your inner joyfulness and results in stress, depression and a number of psychosomatic ailments.
If we look around us, it is so easy to spot inauthentic people.
The other day I was in meeting with a ops director of a company where I was scheduled to conduct a soft skills development Training Program for workers. To me he says "tune them up so that they cause minimum trouble. I am not concerned about their families and their troubles as long as they give out put". "I am not going to give them a raise, I have put it forward to another point of time". Just a few minutes ago I had heard him addressing workers with big smiles, : "I am very concerned about your well being and of your families, not to worry we are not only here for you but your families too. The company is here because of your efforts, we are only helping you to achieve. About you raise it is under consideration of the board. Etc Etc......" He never realized that he was not being genuine.
The other day I was in meeting with a ops director of a company where I was scheduled to conduct a soft skills development Training Program for workers. To me he says "tune them up so that they cause minimum trouble. I am not concerned about their families and their troubles as long as they give out put". "I am not going to give them a raise, I have put it forward to another point of time". Just a few minutes ago I had heard him addressing workers with big smiles, : "I am very concerned about your well being and of your families, not to worry we are not only here for you but your families too. The company is here because of your efforts, we are only helping you to achieve. About you raise it is under consideration of the board. Etc Etc......" He never realized that he was not being genuine.
Often times
I have heard and read, that being authentic is bad for leadership with a whole
lot of examples. Every time I have found that the leader is not being genuinely
authentic.
I repeat here for those:
If you don’t recognize being inauthentic when
you are and if you are not willing to face that you are being inauthentic,
you have no chance of being authentic leading to loss of internal joy of
living. So face and examine your in-authenticities. Examine your world view
and perceptual restraints, accepting is half the battle won. Change your
thinking.
Sit in silence (as explained in my blog Comments on the Tao of learning)
three times a day. This will help you to find the path of authenticity. It will
also open communication between your thinking mind and the inner self, this
will definitely help to remove your perceptual restraints. At some point of
time (you may or may not realize it), you will become a genuine person,
authentic, radiant, and importantly you will experience the joyfulness in your
being. Don’t worry you look great already !!!!!!
Ajay
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