images and conflicts

Images and conflicts.

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What is ur image? How would u answer this question. How would anybody answer this question? Most of us tend to have positive images about ourselves, good looking, good person, a patriot, a good parent or sibling, or a good child etc etc

When I ask myself this question, the immediate answer that comes to me is, ive no image…I try not to cultivate an image. But on following the thought I understand that that’s just not true. We all have images.

How are these images formed? I guess they start getting formed from day one; they are formed through the senses. The early people in our lives help us give shape to our images. I.e. if ur mom says that u are a plucky kid, then u sort of start being more plucky than usual just so that u remain true to that image. So did is your initial pluckiness, which made your mom call u plucky in the first place, create ur image as a plucky person, or did ur mom’s comment help cement the image? I think the comments, the understandings, the imbibing  ie everything external, creates the image. 

 

Again, does the mind, also work in pruning an image so formed from other’s opinions? Like for example, if I stop to think, hey im not so plucky as mom felt, then does that effect my future actions and thus my image? I think it does.

So can we safely say, that the human mind creates an image of himself, by taking stimulus from the environment, and tweaking it to what he finds most closest to truth, as he sees it?…he can of course stop at the first instance, i.e. not tweak it at all, but accept the image given to him by others at face value.

The more and more I think of it, the more I feel, im on the right track.

I remember my somebody telling me once, that somewhere at age four, when all the kids in the family was asked, what they wanted as gifts, he was the only one who asked for a bar of soap, for his father’s shirt which had a spot. Of course the whole family found it very noble, and since then self sacrificing nobility has been his image.

When I say image, I meant that there are two images actually.

One image is the way u perceive yourself as being in the world, and the other image is the image of how the world sees you. Of course both images will never be the same. After all images are always created from external and internal data fed into the brain, and since the same data cannot be fed into different minds, two images of a particular person can never match with a 100% accuracy.

Which brings me to conflicts. I believe that most conflicts are nothing but clashes between images. The image created by you about u and the image created by another person about u. When they more or less match, the conflicts are less. When they match very little, the conflicts are huge

Last week, I have this peon at work, who has  created this image of being a very efficient person,  he has decided that he is so good at his work, that he is as good or even better than me, at my work, and his image does not take a beating, since he does not know the extent and  exact nature of my work, as he has never done it, has never got the opportunity to do it,  and when he interacts with me, he interacts with his so conceived image. I of course don’t see him that way at all. I can surely see that he is good at photocopying, without messing it up, at delivering files and letters without losing it on the way,  i.e. he is competent at what he is supposed to do, but that does not make him competent to do my work. Here the images clash.

So, when he tells me that we can fax the draft signed copy of a letter, while the final copy remains unsigned, I lose my temper. Don’t teach me my work, I tell him sharply. He is terribly hurt. Now I can understand that he is hurt. I can even understand that he has a right to sulk. Nobody likes their wonderful ideas to be squashed like flies. But what I cannot comprehend is  the depth of his hurt, did my remark warrant such a huge hurt?

I am now interested in this guy. And the reason for his huge hurt. I remember, how when another peon had misplaced a file, he had commented, “that’s why I don’t let the other guy do it..how so ever tired I am, I do these kinds of work, cause other wise my work increases. Now I have to correct the mess he has created”.  He had in fact helped me create an image of him in my mind. By giving me the first data. That he is efficient. Than the others. Till then, I had not noticed that he was any more or less efficient than the others. It was his statement that made me create the image of him in my mind, and since I had not found anything contrary, I have mentally ticked the image as correct.

I discuss last week’s incident with my colleague. She tells me, the last boss had sort of kept him on his head. Which is why, he is so swollen headed. That made sense. An already inflated image kept floating by an authority figure helps in inflating it further. She also tells me, that when his wife happened to call at work, her voice over the phone seemed to suggest that he had given her the impression that he was a huge thing at work, and not just a peon, who existence does not make much difference to the scheme of things at work.

Here lies the crux. When you have created an image, based more on untruths, than truths, then it becomes very difficult to live up to it. I.e. if u happened to climb a mountain once successfully, but u project to the world that you are an old hand at mountain climbing, and that there is nothing that needs to be known about mountain climbing, that you do not know, then the image is more or less, going to be unwittingly tested often.

Which is what’s happening with my subordinate……each action of his is based on his inflated image, that he is more than capable to handle my work, and when I sometimes show him his place, he is deeply wounded. Cause in his eyes, that’s not his place, its way below his place.In his eyes Im being grossly unfair to keep him at that place. 

And that’s why we are in conflict. Whenever it reaches that point. My image of his, and his image of himself will never match.