Would you like you, if you meet you?

I read this sentence today while browsing for some reference. Perhaps answering this question is the best way to see ourselves from the eye of people around us. Our behaviour and attitude matters in living as a part of larger community, people are watching, observing, and remember what we did in the past. People around us, whether it’s our friends, family, teacher, colleague, even our regular supermarket’s cashier. We live in the world full of opinion, and whether we care about what others think or not, it has some effect to our life.

Let’s say one day your colleague in the office bring his son to wait with him, because his wife can’t pick their son on time from school. You see your colleague as a wise and loving man, always trying to be friendly with everyone at the office. But that day on the office, you saw him hitting his son twice because he is playing with his computer. Two things come to your mind, it could be just a discipline act to a child, or he is short-tempered when dealing with children. From that experience only, your opinion about your colleague might change. You might now see him as a short-tempered man or unable to discipline children correctly.

Now back to the question, “would you like you, if you meet you?”. Generally speaking most extroverts would say yes, while introverts would say no. Because extroverts nature of being loud, friendly and a better communicator than introverts, most people are more comfortable being with extroverts. But some introverts will feel more comfortable with other introvert as well. That’s just one broad point of view in answering the question, and an arguable one. Another point of view is to assess our own self worth, as it correlates with whether we like ourself. The more people feel worthy of himself, the more he is comfortable and happy with who he is. On the downside, he may care less of people’s opinion as long as he feel doing something right.

I ask the main question myself and I tend to say no, I won’t like me if I meet me. I’m a goal-oriented person, doesn’t like small talks, and trying to do tasks as effective and efficient as possible. On the good side, I rarely reject people request for my help, I keep my promises, and because of my time-efficient method I always finish the job given to me on time. Simply put, I love working and I’m not so close to people. People like me just don’t get close to each other, it’s a wonder if we met. Do I care if people like me or not? Not really. But do I want certain people to like me? yes.

Living within society means we have to adapt with their wants. We have to be friendly, even if it’s not our nature to chit-chat meaningless talk with others. We have to sacrifice something (time usually, but money and effort too) to smoothen our path in daily life. We have to attend a party once a while, even if we prefer reading books at home. Perhaps we have to shape our life according to what society think is right and nice, but deep down in our mind, we are aware of who we are.

So, would you like you if you meet you?

dp