Holding A Mirror — Our Reason For Being
Look at yourself.
Really look at yourself. See who you are, feel who you are. The mix of emotions, strengths, weaknesses, lessons learned, achievements made, memories, loves, fears, anxieties and hopes.
Don’t meditate, don’t breathe more deeply — just go to a mirror, look and then feel.
But how often do we all actually do that? You know, hold up a mirror to ourselves? I don’t mean when we are getting ourselves ready in the morning or even (if you can remember the days) getting ready for a night out — but looking at ourselves as us — as who we really are.
This digital world and environment in which we live and work, with its ever-changing dynamics — feels sometimes as if it is trying to prevent us from remembering who we are. Not our job title, our family role, our relationships but who we are as us.
The never ending emails asking (but not always listening to) our opinions, the personalised websites pushing products to us based on a barely recognisable data generated profile, our social media profiles farmed for advertising profit — our digital ‘self’ being ‘harvested’ for commercial gain.
This I believe, results in us losing a sense of true self, a sense of who we are — we become a ‘version’ of ourselves online, responding to ‘prompts’ and actions that seep into our behaviour and thought patterns — distancing us from who we really are.
We know this and we do feel it — but we can’t jump off the ride, can we? If we did — what would we do? Our work and our digital selves are so intrinsically linked to our survival, be this financially and in some cases emotionally — we cannot imagine ourselves as who we really are.
The technology that we use keeps us on that ride. The data collection, the tracking, the advertising, the targeting, the offers, the likes and shares all creating reliance, all focused on creating and feeding into our perceived sense of self.
We can’t see who we really are, and that hugely benefits the technology designers and providers, they say — “Keep clicking, buying, liking, sharing, commenting and watching” — “Have this for free! Yes free! Can you believe how generous we are!”. “But, whatever you do, don’t think, don’t pause, don’t try and remember the real you — because you are no use to us then…”
Now, it is easy to bemoan the technology that has been designed and used to harvest and (in the truest sense of the word) ‘disconnect’ us. There is an argument that we need to create new technology platforms that enable us to be ourselves . But, I believe that its too late for that and would argue that the technology platforms are not the problem — it’s the way we have ‘allowed’ them to be used.
So, at People Matter we use the same technological approaches, the same methods, the same focus on data collection, tracking and observation and reversed their use. Instead of tracking what people do in their digital lives, storing it and selling it to advertisers and third parties, we present it back to you.
We show you what you are really doing and saying online, allowing you to understand how you are behaving and interacting in your digital space. We find and present your ‘Digital Self’ to you. In effect we are a (digital) mirror, one that with the benefit of using technology in a more transparent way allows us to show your digital self to (and for) just you.
Because by doing this we believe that you can see what’s really going on. You can see your triggers to self-doubt, to anxiety, to maybe anger and uncertainty. You can also see your drivers when you are positive, engaged, hopeful.
We can help you to understand more with subtle support, guidance and information that you can choose to follow and use. We are a mirror — but one we hope allows you to see and feel a little deeper, one that helps you start to reconnect to yourself.
There is a poem by Derek Walcott, called Love After Love, which, I think sums up what we are trying to achieve at People Matter. We are trying to help you understand that you, as you are — are more than good enough and by realising this — you really can allow yourself to grow and thrive.
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat
you will love again the stranger who was your self.
give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart.
take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
