Reputation...REPutaion R3pUt@Ti0N!!!!

what's the fuss about?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Reputation, reputation reputation....

My mother always said that the most important thing for you to maintain is a good reputation. She was very proud of her reputation that she maintained -->"untouchable" as "someone who will beat you and stop before a murder charge if you even tried to touch her inappropriately..."  she was proud that men feared her and women hated her out of jealousy... she was perfectly happy with her reputation.
so, this got me thinking as a child - as it was impossible not to since it was brought up regularly - about my reputation, when I was in grade seven I was exactly like my mother. and when grade eight came around I decided I didn't want people to fear me - it's not exactly the best way to make friends you know - but what this saying also did was it made me consider how I want to be remembered.

a good thing yes?...NO!... a very very very bad thing.

lets evaluate what happened as I moved into high school.... I started to think about how I wanted to be remembered... I started to think about how I wanted people to think of me. I started caring more about what people thought about me. as a person. not what I wore or what I looked like. I considered my personality.
that is a dangerous ball to play with. REPUTATION.....

lets look at the definitions shall we?

wiki says - Reputation is the opinion (more technically, a social evaluation) of the group of entities toward a person, a group of people, or an organization on a certain criterion. It is an important factor in many fields, such as education, business, online communities or social status.


Reputation can be considered as a component of the identity as defined by others.

–noun

1.

the estimation in which a person or thing is held, especiallyby the community or the public generally; repute: a man ofgood reputation.

2.

favorable repute;  good name: to ruin one's reputation bymisconduct.

3.

a favorable and publicly recognized name or standing formerit, achievement, reliability, etc.: to build up a reputation.

OK so we need to understand that a good reputation is needed in some area's like business and education. having a good reputation amongst your fellow pears is not something that is desperately needed. As a 14 year old one does not need to worry about what people will think if she behaves in a certain manner.

REPUTATION. It seems to me that maintaining a certain reputation is a lot responsibility. A lot of pressure.


REPUTATION. I truly hate this concept.  how OTHERS view you. shouldn't we be more concerned about how WE view ourselves. "a good reputation is more valuable than money"... is not something you teach your kids, because you and your kids are being taught to categorise people, label them, label themselves, yourselves. you're teaching and learning judgement. worrying about a reputation is the doorway to insecurities and self loathing as well as judgement. it's not a happy door...it's a sad sad sad door! stay away little friends stay away!...

We shouldn't be growing up worrying about a reputation, children act out. Teens act out - heck Adults act out! we shouldn't worry that the moment we loose our temper or the moment we have too much to drink, the moment we find ourselves pregnant - that our reputation will be ruined.

REPUTATION is not what needs concentration. Concentrating on who we want to be - also a bad idea.
we should not concentrate on how others view us, and we should not concentrate on who we want to become.... because lets face it... at the start of teenage hood and into adulthood most of the time, none of us actually want to be who we are, we want to be someone else who we find much cooler than who we are. {{don't even try and deny it, the best of us feels that way at the worst of times....}}

CONCENTRATION. what we need to focus on is being ourselves. it sounds so cliché but it's true,,,, and we need to focus even more on being ok with screwing up and being able to look in the mirror after a humiliating experience, after a painful fight, after loosing our temper, after making the biggest mistake of our life and saying "yes, I screwed up, yes I'm not perfect, yes many people are going to talk about it for weeks and are going to insult me... but I'm still freaking awesome and I still love who I am right now"
It's not about a reputation. who cares what the population thinks of you?... who cares if the population thinks your a terrible person due to a mistake you made in high school . That's not important, what's important is realising that your God is the only one you need to impress and knowing that you don't have to impress him. what's important is learning to love the person you are now, the one making mistakes, not the person you'll become from those mistakes, the one right now who embarrasses you sometimes, who sometimes doesn't have proud moments, who has a lot of blonde moments and who screws up ROYALLY. that person. LOVE that person.

so I'd say shove you're theory on a good reputation being more valuable than money Mr. fortune in the cookie. The one thing that's more Valuable then all the riches and that good reputation crap... Is learning to love the person you're ashamed of sometimes that's in your mirror, is learning what really matters... you.
you matter, no matter what your reputation is. You matter, you are amazing and You should love it.

haha ... yeah...:}


so... this is ButtonGirl popping in....and falling off this coat......peace