We love to shape the narrative.
To carefully navigate just how we tell people who we are.
We emphasize certain aspect of our character, downplay others, and outright omit a few of the undesirable aspects. For we genuinely care about others’ perceptions of us. Regardless of how we may think about them, we want them to regard us as generally independent, intelligent, and good. Therefore we present a curated version of ourselves and hope it holds.
Yet all of this focus on managing what others think about us is ultimately for naught. For despite our best efforts, people will see through us and/or misinterpret even our best our actions. We simply can not control what others feel or know about us. It is a vain effort we nonetheless feel compelled to engage in.
Perception, however, isn’t ultimately judged. Reality, from the lens of omnipotence, is how we are known and judged.
“What you say about yourself means nothing in God’s work. It’s what God says about you that makes the difference.”
What would God actually say about me? There would be positives (although the degree of ‘credit’ would likely differ significantly from my own perception), and there would also be negatives that would be difficult to justify. Being judged against perfection by one who knows my every action and thought is intimidating (thank God for forgiveness).
Instead I prefer to compare myself to other people. I typically select folks I consider myself better/kinder/less messed up than, and then conveniently find myself ending up ahead in the comparison. However, we all recognize this practice is flawed.
For every day we struggle and error but we can’t give up on the effort to do what is right. We should however redirect our energy into actually being the person we are trying to project, vice maintaining an appearance. Forgiveness is a necessity for us all, however we should aspire to live like we are truly redeemed.