How do you see yourself?
There are many ways a person sees themselves, but I am fascinated by the thought that a person will never really truly ever see themselves how others see them. Yeah, you can look in a mirror, but that image is flipped. You can look at pictures, but that isn’t the truest form of what you look like. Dove put out a video called “Real Beauty Sketches.” It really made me think how I look at myself and the way I interact with people. So many people don’t think favorably about themselves, and that makes me sad.
Perspective is discretionary. So many times, people are their own worst critic. The way others see us, in most cases, is better than we see ourselves. People are more beautiful than what they often think. It breaks my heart when I hear that someone is unhappy with the way they look because more often than not, they are beautiful people.
In this video, they bring in an FBI trained artist. He’s sitting in an open studio with his back to the incoming person. He doesn’t see them when the woman sits down, she and the artist are separated by a curtain. The artist only asks the ladies to describe themselves. After he is done drawing them, he asks them to leave. Before the sketch, they were asked to get to know another person. The person that they get to know is then brought in to describe the person that was originally drawn by the artist. In the end, there is two drawings of the one person, a drawing described by how the person sees themselves and another drawing of how the person they got to know sees them. The results are touching. In most cases, the way they saw themselves isn’t very favorable. There were comments made that they have dark circles under their eyes, where the second picture doesn’t account that. There are descriptions of having a fat, rounder face, but you don’t see that in the second drawing.
Where does this all come from? There is a deep issue with the way people interact with each other. There is an infection in our society that makes people feel like they are less than, and they carry that internally. We are all created in God’s image and should be happy with the way we look. It shouldn’t be about who looks better than me, or how do I avoid someone because I don’t want them to see me. That’s no way to live. Imagine a world through innocent eyes. No judgment on looks or financial status. Just encountering people as people. There is a lot to be learned but the easiest way to make a change in the world is to follow the golden rule.
