Who Are You Trying to Impress?
I am always aiming to uphold my integrity, (another one of those values taught to me by my dad) but it is not an easy feat. There have been many instances throughout my life where I have struggled to upkeep it, or I had simply lost my way. I decided I needed something to refer to when I found the balance of my personal integrity lacking, and after much deep thought and consideration, about a decade ago – maybe less, I figured out a way to hold myself accountable.
Before I tell you what I concluded, I am going to carry you with me through the entire thought process that eventually lead me to my final idea.
Life is funny, we all know it. Every new experience, altercation, and decision forces us to test and further develop our character.
Between outside influences and our inner voices, there is always a web of choices laid out in front of us, and both the paths we choose to set course on and the paths we choose to neglect, shape us as individuals and determine the experiences we have. Making the right choice is not always easy and it is not always obvious. There are so many factors that take a part in determining the decisions that we make.
What state of mind were you in when you made that decision?
How influential to you was the person/place/thing that lead you to make the decision?
How much do you care about the choice?
How much do you care about the outcome?
Who was with you, and if anyone, were they people that cared about and respected your well-being?
Did you care about and respect theirs?
Are you making the choice to please yourself, or someone else?
Was the choice made for pleasure or for growth?
Will you suffer from or be empowered by your decision?
Will anyone else?
Not all these questions will pop into your head whenever you make a decision of any kind, otherwise decision-making would probably happen less frequently and stress and regret would probably be a far more significant part of our lives, individually and collectively. However, usually, most, if not all… if not, probably more of these questions wind up playing a roll, whether it be immediately or eventually, in every decision we make. The classic metaphor of a devil perched upon one shoulder and an angel on the other plays more of a significant role in our lives than we tend to realize. If every decision we make helps to determine our character, then who we become after we make our next choice can directly impact how we go about making the choice that comes after that. Which led me to wonder, how can I be sure I am making the better choice in all the decisions I make? How can I find a way to more consistently make the right call? How can I reflect on a choice before I have discovered the outcome? Who can I rely on to ensure my own stability and keep my critical thinking genuine and true? Who am I trying to impress?
Other people are unreliable. Even those that love me most and have my best interest at heart, for they are trying to navigate their own journeys. Their journeys may lead them to their own tough decisions, of which they may make the wrong choice, thus impacting their characters. If their characters are blemished, their credibility and certainty will become uprooted making their ability to make judgments on my behalf distorted and intimidating. Even those who seem to have most of the answers will never have all of them.
I am just as unreliable. Every day, I am shifting and changing and adapting and therefore, a decision I may think to be a good one today, I might have thought to be a terrible one just a week ago. Or a month, or perhaps a year. I cannot trust my judgments as absolute, and honestly, I hope that I never do.
Which still begs the question: who should I rely on? Who is unwavering and well-intended and good and pure?
Then it dawned on me.
I should be aiming to impress ten-year-old me.
The ten-year-old version of myself is fixated in time, and therefore, unwavering. She is young enough to have preserved a great deal of her innocence, making her well-intended and good, but she is old enough to understand mistakes and understand what it means to accept and allow and forgive, which makes her pure. The ten-year-old version of myself wants what is best for me more than anyone else ever possibly could. Her dreams are still vibrant and endless, and I use that as motivation to work towards my goals.
Ten-year-old me is the perfect fixture in my life for me to use to hold myself accountable. Her childlike wonder and her everlasting hopes are admirable, and I am to cherish them with all that is in me. Her naive, wonderful blue eyes are a pair I would never wish to see in tears, and so; I aim to never hurt her. I never want to let her down. She has lived long enough to understand darkness, but not yet long enough to be carried off by it, and so; if I uphold her values, it shall not carry me either.
She would not have liked my every decision. She would have been disappointed to see how many cigarettes have traced through my lips, and angry when she saw me behave as a coward for manipulative men while she was off dreaming about Prince Charming. However, she would have understood and listened, and she would have been the first to lead me back to a place of stability and happiness.
Of course, I am still going to lose my way. I am probably still going to make countless mistakes that would displease her, and I have probably not yet encountered the last time where I feel totally lost, but as I carry forward, it will always be my goal and my intention to make her proud. That is the bottom line. As long as I continue to aim to make her proud, I can continue to have her to rely on.
As I pass this thought off to you, I leave you with a task: sift through your life and find the version of yourself that you feel, and will continue to feel the most motivated to please and to make proud. Then, hold yourself accountable to your actions by living to serve that version of yourself. Through each decision you make, and for every time you find yourself at a fork in the road, confronted by darkness, or nudged into temptation, look at that smaller, more innocent version of yourself and ask them what choice they think you should make.
Greg Johnson
Oh Danika, that gave me chills. I believe that you are absolutely on the money here. There is a place in childhood for so many where moral idealism is uncluttered and the closest to simplistic purity. A want for goodness I believe is a predominate human pre-wire. The most blessed amongst us are able to carry childhood wonder and curiosity through life.
I would really like your opinion on Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for life if this fall or winter give way to a wonderful read.
Great blog again, brilliant observation.
Danika
Thank you so much! And I absolutely agree; wanting to be good is at the root of all of us. I have some thoughts & theories about how that very thing might be leading us to shift how we perceive our memories to make us out to be the people we believe we are, but maybe thats a post for another day. 😅
I would love to read his book! I’ve watched many videos of him lecturing and I find his brain fascinating.
Diana
I have read and reread your latest post. Most people already have convictions, even at an early age, to help with solving problems or making decisions. With each decision that is made, it will be the right decision at that time according to your convictions and add to your convictions .
To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thy can not then be false to any man. I love the quote, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I try very hard to live by it.
Your posts are very very interesting, love reading them.
Don Johnson
Danika,
Each one of your posts are so well written. I love reading them and seeing into your experiences. I also like to read the posts before mine to see what the rest of the readers see in your writing. You look at the world so well, you have the ability to extrapalate that in such a way that your stories take us with you on your jouney. Absolutely love your blogs, look forward to the next one, and wonder where you will let this lead. I also wonder where the blogs will lead you, because your posts are all so personal, and almost spur of the moment. When you start out to write these, do you think about what to write on, or do you just let your spitrit guide you to the next story?
I ask because are we reading from long thought out how to, or just words falling from that memory box, and do you sometimes surprise yourself on where the writing goes? Either way, the words flow, and the story is so real, it draws us in. Not everyone can do this, and you have that gift.
Big chunks of love…… Uncle…………..
Danika
Thank you so much! That truly means a lot.
And that’s a good question. I suppose the answer is a little bit of all of the above. I always know what I want to write about next, and I pick what I wish to write about carefully. each story has a purpose and I write them with the hope that they can reach the right people to read them. But beyond the initial topic, that’s as far as my planning goes. Usually, I can see a vague road map of where I want the story to lead and what points in particular I want to highlight, but otherwise my writing is best described as a free flow, or a stream of thoughts from my mind. And through it, there have been moments where I have had personal reflections and realizations on things I hadnt previously given a name to yet. But for the most part, there has always been so much locked up inside of me that I’ve been dying to say somewhere, and I have finally found the place where I can do that. I have (and always have had) every desire in the world to have all the thoughts and ideas in my head to be told aloud, and it’s my greatest wish that anyone who comes across them might find something to take away from it all. I see far more value in telling my stories than I do keeping them to myself.
Adriane
It’s so important to be true to yourself and not let other people affect your decisions in the wrong way.
Danika
Absolutely! ♡
Sandra Ans
Very, very interesting thought! I have never thought of this kind away…
Nevertheless, I motivate myself with thoughts – ”who I need to become, to protect one day my daughter, who will be the same naive and innocent, as I was”…
Anita
This is a really amazing post to reflect and understand yourself more. It’s so important to know oneself and not try to impress anyone else.
Danika
I agree; it is important. Thank you so much for reading & for your kind words!
Melissa
I love the task you provided! It’s better to face the more difficult situations with a calm simple solution! Well done!
Danika
Thank you so much! 🥰
I’m so glad you enjoyed what I had to say & I hope you visit again soon. ♡
Lani
Just what I need. I am still on that path of understanding who I am and developing into the person I want to be. Some of the points you mentioned remind me that I’m not alone. Thank you